Rafael Nadal is already making serious improvements in his brief comeback to tennis.
Alex de Minaur found that out the hard way at the Mutua Madrid Open on Saturday.
A little more than a week after losing to De Minaur 7-5, 6-1 at the Barcelona Open, Nadal took down the Australian speedster 7-6(6), 6-3. The five-time Madrid champion treated the home crowd to his biggest and best win since the 2022 season, getting the job done in two hours and two minutes of entertaining tennis.
“No, not yet,” Nadal said when asked if the “Old Nadal” is back. “It needs time. I think for moments it [was] a good level of tennis. I was able to do positive things, but still on and off. Super happy to be competitive against a great player like Alex, to play more than two hours, it means a lot to me. The atmosphere is a joke. I can’t thank enough everybody here.
“I really believe that (my) tennis hasn’t been an issue for the last two years–more the physical issues. If I am able to play weeks in a row, then I’m gonna see how far I can go and how competitive I could be. That’s not the case yet. Step by step; let’s see how I recover.”
The former world No. 1 certainly recovered well from his recent Barcelona setback.
Still, it wasn’t easy against De Minaur.. The two players took turns battling back from a break down in a tight opening set before Nadal raced to a 6-2 lead in the tiebreaker. De Minaur saved four straight set points to level things at 6-6, but Nadal finally capitalized on his fifth opportunity.
From there it was all Nadal the rest of the way.
The 37-year-old Spaniard will face unseeded Pedro Cachin on Monday.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.