Rafa confirms a tournament before the Australian Open and meanwhile talks about Slams: “In the end Djokovic will have more than all”
The adage of an old advertisement made some great champions say that things had to be done well. The images and videos posted in recent days by Nadal leave no doubt about Rafa’s intentions regarding how to face the impending season: intense training in his Academy in Mallorca to regain his condition as soon as possible after the six-month break (with the exception of two games in Washington in August) due to the injury to his left foot and related treatments. The former world number one, now number 6, had already set the soft return to the Mudabala Classic in Abu Dhabi, now a classic performance by the emirs scheduled from 16 to 18 December. From there, he imagined he would fly to Melbourne (he has no vaccine problems) to face his first official match only at the Australian Open from January 17th. Instead we will find him on the field as early as January 3 to 250 organized in the same city, one of the preparatory appointments for the Grand Slam of the antipodes.
The slam race
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Obviously, Nadal wants to approach the first Major of the season, won only once in 2009, with some real games on his shoulders. And after giving up the ATP Cup (where he would have immediately faced one between Djokovic, Medvedev, Zverev and Tsitsipas) there was nothing left but a softer landing (the second seeded is Opelka). Rafa hasn’t played a 250 since Brisbane 2017 and hasn’t won a 250 since Stuttgart 2015, but then again, the superbigs have very few of them. This year he played only 29 games, of which 22 on clay, the surface on which he obviously aims to shine the most, with the focus on Roland Garros and the pursuit of the 14th triumph escaped this year and which would have the flavor of an undertaking beyond any imagination. Among other things, there is always at stake the race for the highest number of Grand Slams at the end of his career between him, Federer and Djokovic. Argument on which the Majorcan expressed himself during a television interview: “Djokovic is definitely the favorite to become the player with the most Grand Slams in men’s tennis. Federer is in a certain type of condition, me in another. Novak, on the other hand, is playing, and he is playing well, he is in a great moment “. Not to mention who pushes behind: “By now we have to say that Medvedev, Zverev and Tsitsipas are the present of tennis, they are the ‘current generation’, we must not treat them forever as if they were only the future of tennis”. On the present, however, he still wants to have his say.
December 11, 2021 (change December 11, 2021 | 00:53)
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