I won 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6 and 6-3, in four hours and eight minutes. He returns to the penultimate round of the tournament three years later
Intua Denis Shapovalov, according to his own speech, a long battle. And there was. Everything seemed under control for Rafael Nadal, who dominated by two sets to love and had deactivated the young Canadian, who was slow to appear but resurfaced when he was left for dead and, helped by the energy deficit that plagued his rival due to stomach problems, took the match to the limit . It was hard to imagine that something similar could happen in view of what happened until Nadal missed the third set. He did not know how to manage the comeback Shapovalov, who gave up his service early in the fifth, saw how his rival recovered success with the serve, and wasted three balls of break in his first two rest innings.
Once again, in a display of resilience and veteran, the Spaniard pulled through a match that had become very difficult for him and will be in his seventh Australian Open semifinals early Friday morning, the thirty-sixth in a Grand Slam tournament, after winning 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6 and 6-3, in four hours and eight minutes, and is two games away from winning the Australian Open again, 13 years later, and add the twenty-first major, with the one who would be left alone on the heights, with one more than Federer Y Djokovic.
There is no antidote for Nadal in his impressive return to competition after five months out injured. After winning the ATP 250 in Melbourne, he got his eighth consecutive victory, and he did it with a degree of combativeness that reaffirms his options to fight for everything. Under normal conditions, you might have run into Novak Djokovic in the penultimate season, but, absent the Serbian, against whom he has lost two finals in this tournament, after the turbulent episode that ended in his deportation from the country, he will face the Italian Matteo Berrettini, who also needed five sets to get rid of the French Gael Monfils.
After two consecutive years falling in the quarterfinals, before Stefanos Tsitsipas Y Dominic Thiem, Nadal returns to the penultimate round of the tournament. Only once, in 2008, against Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, stayed in the semifinals. To the triumph of 2009 he adds four lost finals, since he also lost against Stan Wawrinka, in 2014, and Federer, in 2017. There are already 22 consecutive victories against left-handers, precisely since that boy named Shapovalov defeated him five years ago in the second round of the Masters 1000 in Montreal.
His beginning was incontestable. Firm with the service, he dominated an erratic rival, who conceded his second service turn blank with a succession of errors. It cost him to let go of the Canadian, to develop with the fluidity that characterizes him. He was not in tune with the initial blow, running into the good performances of the rest on the other side of the net. In the third match on the day of the four he has played in the tournament, Nadal made the most of the conditions that were favorable to him at the start; his ball stings more, his impacts are poisoned more easily.
inconsistent the canadian
Shapovalov, fourteenth favorite, is a tennis player who plays fast. He can be difficult to contain when he is touched by inspiration, by an inertia of successes chained, or show all his vulnerability when he cannot move close to the line and take the initiative. He came with the endorsement of having defeated in three straight sets Alexander Zverev, third favorite, but the stake this time was much higher; Nadal penalizes inconsistency with a high price. Semi-finalist at last Wimbledon, this time Shapo could not repeat the achievement.
Before the start of the second set, the Canadian complained to the chair umpire, Carlos Berndez, because his adversary delayed when he was ready to serve. The dialogue between the two was reproduced with his addition to the brief conversation. None of this destabilized the Spaniard, in principle also immune to Shapovalov’s improvement, more accurate with the serve, capable of holding up better in the second set.
Nadal hit the one-handed backhand of the Tel Aviv-born player, who, however, resisted the break ball, among other reasons because on the few occasions he had to provoke it, he missed with remains on second serve. Nadal’s parallel right worked. The break in the seventh game of the second set he had a capital weight. Two out of two presented the man from Manacor when it came to transforming his options.
The Canadian thought he saw a gap to return to the match with his first two break options in the sixth game of the third, suffocated by two separate service winners. S took advantage of the ill-advised ninth game of the Spaniard, who committed a double fault and gave him life, later delivering the third set. It was then that his problems began and victory hung by a wire. He declined his service, had to request medical attention and needed to hurry until the last partial, where he recovered his weapons to certify his pass. There, in the short distances, and on the big stages, few move like him, even in the most adverse situations.
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