Nadal, whose body is no longer young, still has a Nadal-like big heart and strong nerves.
In the men's singles quarterfinals of the Australian Open, Nadal won a crushing victory. What a crushing victory!
But such a victory, and Very Nadal, is the reason why Nadal is Nadal.
Nadal's physical problems are obvious, and the data shows that his forehand and backhand ratio in the first two sets reached 72% of the forehand dominance, but in the third set the forehand and backhand have been completely evenly distributed, which means that he has lost the explosive power of the side forehand attack. After taking the lead in the decider, he almost gave up resistance in the opponent's serve, and has always been a Nadal who must fight for every ball, and many balls are not chased or disputed, just to use his very limited physical strength to focus on his own serve.
6 to 3, 6 to 4, 4 to 6, 3 to 6, 6 to 3. Nadal admitted after the match: "I don't know how I did it, I had good luck at the start of set 5. I had the opportunity to go straight in 3 sets, but I started to feel tired when I came up in the 3rd set... I'm not 21 anymore. ”
Nadal described discomfort to the tournament physician at the break in the 4th set, but did not know whether it was an internal (such as gastrointestinal) or external (such as muscle) problem, he also took painkillers. If it's just fatigue and not some injury like a torn muscle, it's fine. Ahead of Friday's men's singles semi-finals, Nadal will get a valuable two-day break.
And for Shapovalov, if Nadal gives you such an opportunity you can't catch it, then what's there to say. Nadal was already struggling to hold on in the decider, and Shabo should have tried to prolong the pain of his opponents, but he struggled to make mistakes and kept the pain to himself.
Not only that, Shapovalov was playing with impetuosity. In the opening stages of the second set, he first complained that Nadal was too slow to pick up the serve, urged the referee to give a timeout warning, and even shouted to the referee in dissatisfaction that "You guys are all corrupt". He then complained in Nadal's serve that his opponent was too slow to serve, and Nadal couldn't help but come to the net and have a brief conversation with him.
If the first complaint and the rhythm of the serving player should be based on the rule that the server comes, then the second complaint is not at all reasonable. Referee Bernards was right: "Obviously, the timer shows that there are 8 seconds left!" What do you want me to do? ”
In the end, Shapovalov, who had once been revived, still failed to reach the second Grand Slam semi-final of his life; and Nadal seized the opportunity to continue to attack the second Australian Open title in his life. A signing table without nine-time champions Deyo is a championship opportunity that everyone wants to seize. And we all know how amazing Nadal's ability to seize opportunities is. Five wins were achieved, two remaining. It's time to think hard about the possibility of Nadal achieving the 21st Grand Slam title at the 2022 Australian Open.
Nadal, whose body is no longer young, still has a Nadal-like big heart and strong nerves. Shapovalov is still the stupid "stupid wave", and he should learn a lesson from Nadal in this game.
Wen | Zhang Bendou
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