Rafael Nadal may have thought at that second that the TV camera would not film him. After presenting himself, fist raised, to the cheering spectators on the pitch, he had returned to his bench. And then he, the 20-time Grand Slam winner, stuck his head in a towel. On TV it looked like he was crying.
Later, Nadal was composed again, completely ignorant of what had happened. But emotionally moved, yes, he is. With the 6: 3, 6: 2, 3: 6, 6: 3 win against the Italian Matteo Berrettini, he really did an amazing job again.
Nadal has now reached his 29th Grand Slam final. His sixth in Melbourne. The semifinal he won at Rod Laver Arena was his 500th win in a hard court match. When one of the big three – Djokovic, Federer, Nadal – plays successfully, the records appear on their own. And what do you say then? “It’s completely unexpected for me,” said Nadal, “I’m super happy.” As if he had just made his breakthrough and had not reached the end of a unique career. Because he is. More than ever.
Nadal also shines with tactical maneuvers
Bit by bit, after each round passed, Nadal had made it clear in Melbourne that he thought it was a miracle that he even made it to the tournament as a participant. He hadn’t practiced his job for six months, and a condition in the middle foot bones, Müller-Weiss syndrome, first diagnosed in 2005, forced him to take a break. The corona virus also caught him, he was flat for a few days in December.
In all these months he has experienced “challenging moments” without seeing a light, he said. Sometimes he trained for 20 minutes. Then 45 minutes. Then not at all. Then two hours. He would have had many conversations with the team, the family, about “what can happen and what happens” if his condition doesn’t improve. And then it appeared: the thought “that there might be a chance to say goodbye”. After Roger Federer, 40, the second of this elite trio has arrived on the final stretch.
Nadal is now 35, but even at this sprightly tennis age and returning from sick leave, he embodies what he calls “my personal DNA”. He goes to his limits. In the quarterfinals alone against Canadian Denis Shapovalov, he lost four kilos in sweltering heat. And he convinces with tactical finesse. Against Berrettini, judged John McEnroe as a Eurosport commentator, Nadal would have acted really “cleverly”. A remarkable finding, Nadal is more commonly associated with attributes such as strength and will. But McEnroe was absolutely right.
A single beam: Rafael Nadal after the transformed match point.
(Photo: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Reuters)
Right from the start in Melbourne, where he won in 2009, Nadal tried out, adjusted and revised strategies on the pitch. On Friday he spoke about these maneuvers, which was unusual. Strategies are state secrets. In the match against world number seven Berrettini, who wanted to reach his second Grand Slam final after Wimbledon 2021, he deliberately changed his return position again and again, in the first two sets he was close to the baseline, later further back. He wanted to “create doubts in the opponent”. After a dip in set three, he caught himself, trying to manage his energy, focusing on his service games and when a break seemed likely. At 4:3 he cracked Berrettini. Nadal’s “script preparation” was great, McEnroe enthused.
Medvedev freaks out completely, insults the referee – and catches himself again
The bizarre thing in the big picture is that Nadal could triumph in a similar way to another prominent colleague in 2017. “Who was that 35-year-old again who didn’t play for half a year and came here and won?” Asked McEnroe on television and gave the answer himself: “His name was Roger Federer!” Back then, the Swiss was out for a long time with a knee injury before stunning everyone in Australia and winning out of nowhere.
The final will take place on Sunday (9.30 a.m. CET, Eurosport), after the visa discussion about Novak Djokovic, the tournament is really heading for a last purely sporting duel. Nadal could fabricate history. Daniil Medvedev but also. Nadal could win his 21st Grand Slam title, still tied with Djokovic and Federer on 20 trophies. Medvedev could win his next Grand Slam trophy after his victory at the US Open, which no man has managed to do directly after a debut triumph.
He proved in New York that Medvedev has no problems playing the role of a spoilsport when he unperturbedly destroyed Djokovic’s annual Grand Slam dream in the final; even the audience was on Djokovic’s side like never before. The Serb’s record was three Grand Slam victories in 2021. Even at 25, Medvedev is not completely callous, but he has matured, as he proved in the semifinals on Friday. He not only shone as a “marathon runner”, as the loser thought, but also as a hothead, who quickly got himself under control. “The match was very important,” said the Russian world number two later with subtle irony after his 7: 5 (5), 4: 6, 6: 4, 6: 1 against Stefanos Tsitsipas. He’s quite an intelligent crook.
A second opponent? Daniil Medvedev (left) quarreled with referee Jaume Campistol and called him a “small cat” because he initially allowed Medvedev’s opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas to do so when the Greek’s father was illegally coaching.
(Photo: James Gourley/Shutterstock/imago)
When Medvedev received a break and warning due to an obscene gesture in the decisive phase of the second set, he could not be reassured. He approached the referee harshly and demanded that the Greek’s father, Apostolos Tsitsipas, who was chattering in the stands, finally calm down and Stefanos received a warning. Coaching is forbidden. Medvedev’s anger culminated in the fact that he called Jaume Campistol a “small cat”. This expression should now be in the gallery of the most beautiful insults next to McEnroe’s “You cannot be serious”.
After the end of the match, Medvedev apologized but said he was proud of how well he had recovered. “Normally I would keep making mistakes,” he said. Silently, like a silent priest, he had actually dumped Tsitsipas.
Medvedev is aware that Sunday is mainly about the most famous three-way battle in tennis. He also assumes that “Novak and a little Roger will be watching”. But he also clarified: “It’s their business, not mine. I’m here to win the final.”