From having his career up in the air to being crowned the greatest in history. Only Reef Nadal he knows what he has suffered to return to the top. The Spaniard won this Sunday against the delirium of the Rod Laer Arena his second Australian Open and the 21st grand slam of his career. But the road has not been easy.
And it is that Nadal He had been off the slopes for six months due to a chronic problem in his scaphoid, known as Müller-Weiss. Not even Rafa himself knew if he could play tennis at a high level again, as his uncle Toni Nadal acknowledged.
To further complicate matters, Nadal was infected with covid-19 last December, a few days before heading to Australia. The Balearic player came to recognize that he had felt physically destroyed. That didn’t stop him either.
At 35, with a chronic foot injury and less than ideal physical condition, he headed to Australia. To the surprise of many, he won the Melbourne tournament and, despite the fact that he still seemed far from being able to reach a level to fight with the best on the circuit, he stood at the Australian Open facilities.
Nadal and his way to the top of tennis
He went through rounds and Nadal himself recognized after a victory the problems he suffers in the scaphoid of his foot, the Müller-Weiss syndrome. As if that were not enough, he was on the verge of a knockout in the quarterfinals. A heat stroke against Shgapovalov took the Spanish champion to the limit. He also got over it.
Nothing was going to stop him now. won to Matteo Berrettini in the semifinals and be planted in the grand final of the Australian Open. The hardest part remained: overcoming a fit rival, perhaps the fittest on the circuit, and 10 years younger.
Not even starting two sets down in the final could a 35-year-old Nadal with a chronic foot injury. Perhaps only he believed in victory after giving up the second set in the tie-break. After five and a half hours of play, the man from Manacor raised his arms once more. He was already a legendary tennis player. Now he is, with numbers in hand, the greatest of all time.
