The Monte Carlo Masters will take place from April 9 to April 17, with 2 months to go. But the poster for the event was already out, and Nadal made no surprise the headlines.
The tournament director praised Nadal's performance at the Australian Open: "Nadal's road to winning this year's Australian Open is totally worth making a Netflix blockbuster! I've never seen such a magical story, he was like Superman, with extraordinary will and spirit to win the final championship! ”
Director Monca's words are not wrong at all, let's review the whole and see how crazy this thing really is.
In 2021, Nadal was "let two chase three" in the "sad land" Australian Open by Tsitsipas to achieve a "let two chase three" big reversal, the third set of high pressure missed the match point; came to the "warm land" clay, low open high, Barcelona and Rome Masters won the championship, the French Open is bright. However, in the semi-finals of the French Open, he was defeated by Djokovic and fell to the bottom; then withdrew from Wimbledon and the Tokyo Olympics due to injury, and the bottom fell deeper and deeper; the US Open warm-up game returned, the record was not good and fell into the injury crisis, reimbursing the US Open and the rest of the season, the bottom of the valley was not bottomed.
In 2022, the exhibition game returned, losing two consecutive games, losing to Murray and Shapovalov respectively. Then declared infected with the new crown and went home again to retreat. Over and over again, the slope at the bottom of the valley is slippery and wet, a bad omen that it will never climb again. ATP250 Melbourne finally made a comeback again, taking advantage of the fact that the famous players are preparing for the ATP Cup, and it is difficult to beat the top 100 players in this small station to win the championship. Fans have said that a champion of water enhances self-confidence, and the Australian Open seeks more blessings and only seeks good health.
As soon as the Australian Open signing table came out, fans felt that Nadal had up to 8, the signing table was too hard, and from the second round onwards, the round was hard: Kokinakis, Kachanov, Karatsev/Hulkach, Zverev Jr. / Shapovalov, Djokovic /Beretini, Medvedev / Tsitsipas, this table is simply a purgatory on earth! The 35-year-old Nadal has limited physical fitness and is just coming back, and winning the championship is simply a fool's dream.
However, all this turned into an illusion in the darkness. With strong willpower and tenacious fighting spirit, Nadal has experienced difficult moments in every game since the third round, reaching the final in one fell swoop. At the beginning of the final, he was extremely nervous, the service and other techniques were very bad, the first set was swept 2-6; in the second set, with the diversification of the play, he once got two break advantages, but the mistake caused him to lose another set in the seventh set, and the big score faced a 0-2 crisis.
Many fans have chosen to turn off the live broadcast screen at this time and pray silently. Because Nadal is not Djokovic, he is not good at the situation of "letting two chase three".
For fans, the third and fourth sets are a long process, like the darkest moments in the movie, but fans expect this time as long as possible, don't announce game over prematurely. Nadal's technical state returned, but physical fitness became the biggest hidden danger. At this time, Medvedev's physical fitness also had problems, and various technologies showed a downward trend. One after another, Nadal finally pulled the big score back to a 2-2 draw.
The final was suffocating, with Nadal still dominating the attack with his tired body, while Medvedev was completely on passive defence. When Nadal took the lead in the break and won the first serve, the fans had great confidence, but they were quickly beaten back to their original form, and the serve win was broken by Medvedev's lightspeed speed and returned to the balance. Even Nadal himself has put a question mark in his mind, is it possible that there is no second Australian Open title in the hit, and the scene of taking the lead and finally losing the game will be staged again?
Fortunately, Nadal made a solid break, and got a second serve to win the game, and finally won.
All the frustration and frustration, all the bad luck and failure, are reconciled with the Australian Open at this moment.