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ATP1000 the second round of the Rome Masters continues, a clash of the stars will be between Spanish king Rafael Nadal and tournament No. 7 seed and world No. 9 Hurkacz.
The winner of the two sides will receive a ticket to the round of 32.
Nadal is the tournament's 10-time champion, and as the final Masters before the French Open, Rome is the perfect stage for the Spanish king to regain his feel and form.
However, in the first round against the "pheasant" player who had previously defeated Shang Juncheng, Nadal only made a difficult reversal after losing a set to show his form, and he was far from his peak.
In his post-match interview, Nadal said he played very badly in the first game, not even as well as he did in training.
Across the net from Nadal is Poland's Hurkacz, a two-time Masters champion who has a clear advantage on hard and grass, mainly because of his powerful serve.
This is the first time the two have met in their careers.
In the first set, Hurkacz served first.
In the first game, the two were caught in a tug-of-war back and forth, with Nadal squandering all five break points, and Hurkacz holding serve with two serve at crucial moments, which took up to 15 minutes.
Entering Nadal's serve, Master Hu was not to be outdone, and also forced two break points, and Nadal resolved the crisis to hold serve;
The next game completely entered the rhythm of Master Hu's game.
The Polish brother not only used his own serve to be solid, but also played very aggressively in the opponent's serve.
In the 3rd and 5th games, in the face of break points, Nadal made two consecutive small ball mistakes, and was easily broken by Master Hu, and the game score was far behind 1-5;
In the 7th game, Nadal finally forced a break point, and was defused by Master Hu's serve, and after success, he won the first set 6-1.
In the second set, Nadal started the set.
In the first two games, the two held their own serves, and the game score was 1-1;
In the third game, Hurkacz took the lead, forced a break point, and cashed in with an excellent crossing winner to take a 2-1 lead.
Hurkacz, who won the break, held on to the dominance and took the lead all the way to the end.
In the ninth game, Nadal entered a non-guaranteed service game, and Shun Hurkacz broke again to set the score at 6-3.
In the end, after two sets of fierce battles, Nadal, the king of Spanish clay, unexpectedly lost two sets in a row to Hurkacz, stopped in the second round, and lost to his opponent in the first meeting of his career.
Before the French Open, Nadal participated in three consecutive weeks, namely Barcelona, Madrid and Rome, through the three tournaments, twice stopped in the second round, once reached the round of 16, the 38-year-old king of clay is indeed no longer the courage of the year, showing an obvious decline, the god of clay seems to be about to fall off the altar.
With the French Open just around the corner, can Nadal still be the final juggernaut? Let's wait and see.
Congratulations again to Hurkacz on his victory.