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Nadal collides with Norrie in his United Cup debut

Tennis begins and Rafa Nadal begins. Not with the best of results, but with a good face for the future. After ending 2022 with the exhaustion typical of a long campaign and with the premiere of him as a father, the Spaniard began 2023 with a defeat but the same claw as always. Almost three hours of battle against Cameron Norrie at the start of Spain’s tie against Great Britain in the United Cup.

Nadal is back because there was leg speed, strength, masterful shots and battle. But it is the beginning of the year, without competitive filming and there were those failures due to which a game that he began directing with mastery slipped away. On the other side of the net there was not just anyone, but Cameron Norrie who has already shown this past year that he has a hand to beat anyone.

Also Nadal, whom he managed to tie up in the second and third sets. While it is true that the Spaniard managed to unbalance the Briton in the first set thanks to working one breaking option after another, it was the 14th in the world who did the same in the following two chapters. He was taking control in the long points from the bottom and took advantage of the fact that Nadal still lacks effectiveness in the service to break his serve in the sixth game.

The Briton began to look looser, since he had already accumulated some competitive filming in the previous tie against Australia, where he beat Alex de Miñaur. And he knew how to stop Nadal’s attempts to equalize the sleeve. Norrie deactivated all the Spanish break options and still confirmed his growth in this past 2022, forcefully and firmly closing the set with his serve.

“It was a crazy game. He was thinking that he had never managed to win a set and he wanted to achieve the first one, but he had to be super patient. It was a very physical match. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s amazing to have finally beaten him. A great way to end the year. It has been a very good preseason for me, playing many games. I think I have found depth with my shots and I have directed the points. I have prevented him from doing too much damage with his forehand”, analyzed Norrie, who adds with this victory a point for Great Britain in the tie against Spain in the United Cup and a great victory for his record.

Nadal also gains hours of filming, two hours and 45 minutes of self-study of how he is and where he should go. Next test, on January 2 against Alex de Miñaur.

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