Two years after the 2022 French Open, Rafael Nadal reached the final of an ATP tournament. The Spanish champion defeated the qualified Duje Ajdukovic in Bastad and proved to be still competitive on his favorite surface.
The former number 1 in the world did not express his best tennis but never gave up, despite an opponent who was living the best week of his life. The legend of Manacor recovered a set of disadvantage and prevailed in the third set, lifting his arms to the sky and making the history of the sport again.
The level of Rafa is slowly rising and the hope of fans is that the Spaniard can be protagonist at the Paris Olympics, which will begin in a week on the red clay of the French Open. The 22-time Grand Slam champion trained hard in the last month to prepare for the Olympic tournament and missed the Wimbledon Championships to avoid further injuries.
Despite recent improvements, Nadal’s future is still uncertain. The Spaniard is on the entry list of the US Open, but Rafa has not confirmed that he will play the last Grand Slam of the season. Rafa will participate in the Laver Cup, which will take place in Berlin in late September.
Rafa is eternal
Rafael Nadal hopes to be ready for the final on Sunday and – for this reason – decided to retire from the doubles tournament. “It’s always a great feeling to be in a final. I won 4 matches in a row. I wasn’t able to make that happen since 2 years ago. A lot of things happened. That’s the truth” – the Spaniard stated. “I think it was a tough match. My opponent had one of the best backhands that I played against. He came here with a lot of confidence. I think I was trying to push him back. It was very, very difficult, honestly, but I found a way to survive and be through to that final after a long time without being in a final. So that’s great news and I’m very happy with that,” he added.
The determination and work ethic allowed Rafa to make the history of this sport and to have a career much longer than expectations. Despite suffering many injuries, Nadal never gave up and always showed up on the tennis court.
During a recent interview with ‘Fanpage’, top coach Claudio Pistolesi recalled a very funny anecdote about the Spanish legend: “I took many training classes with Toni Nadal and I always talk about when he realized that Rafa was special and different from the others. He said that once the boy was captain of the under-14 team in Mallorca and they went to play a team tournament.
He went to the others because Rafa was the nephew, and he won every game on the score of 6-0, 6-0. At one point, he was told that Rafa was losing 6–0, 3–0. Toni went to see because he feared that Rafa was injured. And he saw this little boy playing with a broken racket, not the ropes but the frame. So he told her to change it, even though the match was already compromised. After the match, Toni said, ‘Rafael, you’re 14, how can you not understand that you can’t play with a broken racket,’ and Rafa replied, ‘But uncle, you told me that I should not make excuses and that I should take responsibility for what I was doing.
Nadal’s crazy numbers
It had been 777 days since his final ATP tour. Rafa reached the 131st final of his amazing career, an incredible number considering that he won 92 titles. Not all fans remember that Nadal already won the Bastad tournament in 2005. Only legends like Novak Djokovic, Ivan Lendl, Roger Federer and Jimmy Connors have played more finals than Rafa. The Spaniard is also the fifth oldest player to reach a final since 1990.
The former World No.1 loves tennis: “I am jumping, falling on the court, but that’s part of the clay too and yeah, just accept that. I love playing tennis. After Roland Garros, it saddened me that I could only train for a week at the physical level I needed to give myself the chance to be competitive on the tour. That’s why I decided to keep training, to see how my body reacted with the Olympics in sight. Skipping the grass season was the right decision.”
The 22-time Grand Slam champion hopes to end his career with another huge title. A new injury would end his career and Rafa knows it, but he is not afraid to face reality.
