It’s time for the truth. Rafa Nadal will start next morning (04:30 Spanish time / Eurosport and Mundodeportivo.com) his journey to the Australian Opena title he won last year against all odds after an epic comeback in the final against Daniil Medvedev.
This time, and despite starting as the first seed after Carlos Alcaraz dropped out due to injury, Spanish is also not among the candidates with the most options.
Their losses in two United Cup matches, against Cameron Norrie and Alex de Minaur, added to a cautious close to the 2022 season, with early eliminations at the Cincinnati and Paris Masters 1000, the US Open and the ATP Finals . have lowered expectations about their options at the first Grand Slam of the year, something that doesn’t seem to worry them.
“I’m happy, trained well. Now I need some wins. I hope that happens here. If not, I will continue working to make it happen as soon as possible. If I lose on Monday, it’s not the end of the world. It’s going to be hard, but I’ll take it no matter the outcome. I feel like I’m getting better, my legs feel faster. I hope to play a good Australian Open, but you never know what can happen. Honestly, I’m ready” he explained on Saturday at Media Day.
Undoubtedly, Nadal faces a big challenge where he has to overcome huge obstacles, starting from the first game. He will face Jack Draper, one of the young promises of world tennis.
The British left-hander, 21 years old and world No. 38 on Monday, came into form after reaching the semifinals of the ATP 250 tournament in Adelaide this week 2where he was overtaken in 2h.45′ by eventual champion Soonwoo Kwon (7-6 (6), 6-7 (2) and 6-3).
He is an inexperienced but explosive opponent who already has high-level victories such as achieved against Felix Auger-Aliassime in the previous US Open.
His climbing promise was hampered by the physical problems he was suffering from and that’s why he, for example, had to withdraw from the US Open because of a muscle problem that kept him out for almost two months.
“I want to play well, really rival my best tennis. It will be amazing to play against him, he is a great champion“, said the British after learning the result of the draw.
To prepare the match in the best possible way, Nadal chose for his last training session the American, and left-hander like Draper, Ben Shelton.
The session lasted an hour and both players contested serve points from the start so that the first seed made final adjustments about his game against a left-handed tennis player with a good serve and very high speed.
Shelton, with similar conditions to Draper but of lower rank, he forced Nadal to be attentive to others and accurate with his right parallel shot to influence the opponent’s backhand.
Also this Monday they will debut at the Australian Open Pedro Martínezagainst Hubert Hurkacz, tenth seed, Jaume Munar against the Czech from the previous Dalibor Svrcina and Barnabas Zapata against Russian Karen Khachanov. In the women’s team, the only Spaniard to jump on the court is Cristina Bucsawho will face German Eva Lys.
Source: La Verdad
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