Rafael Nadal is coming back to the Australian Open with lower expectations. As Rafael Nadal starts his 20th season on the ATP Tour, he is giving himself and others a break. Nadal, who is known for being very strict on the court, is giving himself and others a break.
Since “you haven’t made it to the semifinals at this tournament since you won the title in 2009,” a reporter asked Rafael Nadal how he felt about Melbourne’s weather.
Amused by the question, Nadal softly pushed it back since he has reached the final at Melbourne Park four times since winning it in 2009. Nadal said: “Sorry to tell you He went thru and said how many times he had made finals and then said, “I’m very sorry to tell you.” “I don’t want to do that.”
He said that “usually I don’t play when I don’t think that I will be good,” but that he was willing to lower his expectations for himself so that he could play.
“Because I haven’t played for five or six months, I really look at it in a different way.” So I agreed to go on the tour again, even tho it wasn’t done very well. If I want to be competitive again as soon as possible, I need to get back to school. I need to go there. I need to work with the guys. I needed to play some professional matches, so I did that.
As soon as Nadal played at an exhibition in Abu Dhabi in December, it looked like he was ready to go back on tour. He was one of six players at the event who got the coronavirus. Nadal started to get sick on the plane after he didn’t get sick on the morning of his flight to Spain. Because he was worried about his older relatives, he went straight from the airport to a hospital to get checked out before going home, and he stayed inside after he found out his results.
After four days of pain and high fevers, Nadal was tired for three more days. Nadal said he was “destroyed,” like “super-tired.” He said he had been vaccinated, but he didn’t say if he had been sick. “I couldn’t move very far.”
Nadal got back on an exercise bike eight days after he was told he had a heart condition. He slowly pedaled uphill toward recovery. In Spain, Nadal only practiced for two hours near his home. He decided to go to Australia for more preparation and to play some real, if low-stakes, matches there.
First of all, Nadal won a small match in Melbourne in the first week of the new tennis season. It was Nadal’s first tournament since last August. He had had one of the easiest runs of his life. He faced three opponents who were not in the top 90, and his quarterfinal opponent backed out before the match even took place.
This is the 19th year in a row that Nadal has won at least one ATP title. Nadal won the final with a 7-6 (6), 6-3 victory over Maxime Cressy of the United States. Before the first year, Nadal had always won at least two.
There has, of course, been a lot of good in Nadal’s a lot of things, like the 20 Grand Slam singles titles that put him in a three-way tie with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
How might his win in the warm-up tournament set him up for the Australian Open? Nadal, who missed Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last year, quickly set his sights on a record first.
How it all began. In the beginning, Djokovic was given an exemption that would let him defend his Australian Open title again. At the airport, federal officials said he didn’t meet the requirements for entry because he wasn’t vaccinated, so they took away his visa.
What will happen next. As for the next major tournaments for men, it’s not clear what will happen next. But the standoff in Australia shows what might happen if Novak Djokovic doesn’t get the Covid-19 vaccine before going on tour.
“I mean, I haven’t played in a five-set match since Roland Garros,” he told the crowd. “Of course, I could have done more to prepare. But I’m here. Do not expect me to be happy all of the time. I try to live each day as best I can. I know it’s not the best time for me to try to do well at the first Grand Slam. But you don’t know. If you aren’t here, you don’t have a chance. There, I want to do my best.
Nadal said that Djokovic, who had been a clear favourite to win a record 10th Australian Open men’s singles title this month before he tried to enter the country and play while unvaccinated, was a good person. Djokovic’s ordeal came to an end on Sunday when a court in Melbourne turned down his request to overturn the government’s decision to revoke his visa. He had been detained at an airport when the exemption he provided to get around the country’s vaccination requirements was deemed insufficient.
“Of course, it’s bad for tennis, bad for him, and bad for taking attention away from what’s important to talk about.” I’m sorry for him in that way, though. I don’t care how we think or what we think about the things you have to do in these hard times of the pandemic. I’m really sorry for him.
Nadal has said this month that he needs to listen to medical experts and think about the “consequences.” Djokovic is one of only three players in the ATP Top 100 who hasn’t been vaccinated. In this interview, Nadal said that he wanted to talk about Djokovic “more about a human person than a tennis player, no?”
At the same time, Nadal said that he has a lot of respect for him. In the game, we did a lot of important things together. We did important things together for our foundations, too, and we did them together. So, in some way, I want him to do well. I think it’s very important for him to go out and explain everything.
“But I wish him the best.” Even though we don’t agree on everything, he’s a friend on the tour, and I respect his decisions even though we don’t agree with them. Even though we don’t agree.
