Rafael Nadal advanced to within two games of a record 21 Grand Slam title with a dogfight five-set quarterfinal victory over Denis Shapovalov at the Australian Open on Tuesday. Spain’s sixth seed defeated Canada’s fourteenth series 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3 in 4 hours and 8 minutes of thrilling action at the Rod Laver Arena to advance to his seventh half final in Melbourne, where he will face Matteo Berrettini or Gael Monfils. It was a tough win for Nadal over the 22-year-old, who came from a straight sets against third seed Alexander Zverev.
“It was very tough today. To be honest, I didn’t train for it,” said Nadal.
“Denis played great. He’s very talented, very aggressive and he served a lot. It’s great to be in the semi-finals.”
The Spanish legend has been linked with great rivals Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer on 20 major titles, but with Djokovic forced home from deportation due to vaccination problems and Federer injured, there is a chance for him to clear the top.
Nadal, the 2009 Australian Open champion, had his 2021 season ruined by a chronic foot injury, followed by a Covid-19 attack in December.
He raced to a two-set lead but was visibly hampered by stomach problems before finally coming through after a spirited kickback from Shapovalov laced with winners to all parts of the field.
“I started to feel uncomfortable in my stomach. They checked that everything was okay with my body,” said Nadal, who received medical help in the fourth set.
“I took some tablets to try to improve my stomach.”
Nadal looked on course for a routine two-set win before Shapovalov struck back and brought the quarterfinals to a thrilling climax in the deciding set.
The Spaniard broke into Shapovalov’s opening service game and held on to the win.
The feisty Canadian slammed his racket in court in anger at losing the epic battle.
There was a spirited exchange early in the second set with Shapovalov who was heard to accuse chair umpire Carlos Bernardes of being “corrupt”.
Nadal has a reputation for taking time between serves to the last second of the shot clock and Shapovalov thought the Spaniard deserved a time violation.
“You look at the clock so long ago and it’s still not ready to play. You have to code it,” Shapovalov lamented.
“He’s not ready to play,” Bernardes replied.
“Are you kidding me? You are all corrupt,” said the Canadian.
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Nadal asked Shapovalov what was going on and the players had a brief discussion at the net to calm the situation.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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