The greatest Spanish tennis player in history recalled his old self in Madrid.
Source: Fonet/Manu Fernandez/AP
Rafael Nadal beat Australia’s Alex De Minor in the second round of the Madrid Masters, avenging him for last week’s defeat in Barcelona. The “Bull from Majorca” and the second greatest Grand Slam champion in history finally looked like his old self, as he beat a Top 50 player in the world for the first time in this year’s three tournaments.
De Minor is currently 11, and with Nadal’s triumph against him, Nadal jumped as many as 121 places on the ATP list and on Monday he will be at least 391. The Spaniard came to the tournament only as the 512th player in the world, but that was not even on his mind, but was focused exclusively on getting at least close to the level of top tennis players in Madrid, after the failure in Barcelona. And he succeeded.
In addition to Nadal’s scandalous quarrel with the referee, the 37-year-old giant played a marathon first set, at times hitting the ball out of anger at the referee, but also squandered a 6:2 lead in the tie-break at 6:6, and then showed that he is in it the rest of that “old Rafa”. With a great defensive game, Rafa took a 1:0 lead after even 76 minutes, and then with a 6:3 triumph in the second set won his place in the next round of the prestigious tournament, which he won five times and is the record holder.
And Spanish King Felipe bowed to Rafael Nadal!
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With the support of the Spanish King Felipe from the ceremonial box, Rafa entered the third round, where he will play against the Argentinian Pedro Kacin, currently the 91st player in the world. In the 2nd round, he surprised the 20th seed, the American Francis Tiafoe.
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