Australian Open: Rafael Nadal on the way to becoming a tennis king – one more win is missing – sports mix

What a comeback by Rafael Nadal (35)!

The Spanish tennis star was absent for months due to a foot injury. At times he even had doubts whether he could even play the Australian Open. But now he’s back!

Nadal knocked out Matteo Berrettini (25) in the semifinals. With a 6: 3, 6: 2, 3: 6, 6: 3 against the Italian, he can now dream of his second Australian Open title after 2009! What’s more, he would be only the fourth player after Rod Laver (83), Andre Agassi (51) and Novak Djokovic (34) to have won all four Grand Slams at least twice.

In addition, Nadal could grab his 21st Grand Slam title with a win. It would be a record! The Spaniard, who is in the final in Melbourne for the sixth time: “These are all numbers that interest you journalists, they don’t mean much to me. It’s much more important to me that I can just play tennis.”

Nadal honestly: “A month and a half ago I didn’t know if I would ever come back to the tour. I’ve had a very tough six months, but in general I can’t complain at a time when people are constantly dying from a pandemic around the world. The families who have lost people are having a hard time, but not me.”

Nevertheless, the foot injury of course hinders him. “It will accompany me to the end of my career, it can no longer be fixed,” said the clay court king. “Therefore, what happened here is very surprising for me.”

The training during that time looked like this: “Sometimes I would go out on the court and I could practice for 20 minutes, sometimes 45, sometimes not at all, sometimes two hours, but I was very, very hard on myself when I imagined that I have to play a best-of-five match at this moment.”