Rafael Nadal, who is competing in his first tournament for four months, expressed his surprise at his playing level on Thursday night, upon reaching the Australian Open final for a fifth time.
Speaking after a near-perfect 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 semi-final win over Stefanos Tsitsipas, the 17-time Grand Slam championship winner, admitted, “It’s not easy to be back after four months, five months, and play the way I am playing,” said Nadal. “Of course, I didn’t expect that at all.”
The 32-year-old now stands one victory away from becoming the first man in the Open Era (since April 1968) – and only the third man in history – to win each of the four Grand Slam championship titles twice. Australians Roy Emerson and Rod Laver are the only players to have won each major on two or more occasions. Nadal will play six-time former champion Novak Djokovic or Lucas Pouille in Sunday’s final.
“We can’t compare the rest of my career with today,” said Nadal. “I am playing well today. I am doing a lot of things well. The results say so during my career I did a lot of things very well, too. We can’t say now I am playing better than never, no. I did a lot of things well during my career. I was aggressive because I am playing well. It’s nothing new that I am aggressive. The problem with myself is because I had a lot of success on clay, people, probably, think I am not aggressive.
Having overcome right hip, right knee and abdomen injures last year, the World No. 2 came into the Australian Open, where he won the 2009 title (d. Federer), with a refined service motion and greater groundstroke aggression.
Nadal admitted, “Today, I have to adapt my game to the new time and to my age, that’s all. That’s what I did during all my career, just try to adapt my game with the circumstances that I went through. That’s the only reason why at this moment I still here competing at high level.
“Of course, I am not doing serve and volley. I am not hitting winners every ball. But I play all the shots with a goal. There is no better way to be aggressive than hit every shot with the goal to create damage on the opponent. That was my goal during all the career.
“I’m serving better. That’s why I’m able to create more winners on the first ball. That’s the only reason. For the rest of the things, I always tried to be aggressive. I have my mentality. You can’t go against the way you understand the sport. I can’t play trying to hit winners every ball, if I don’t understand the sport that way. You can’t deal with the pressure. The mental part has to go in front of the game.”
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Nadal also gave words of comfort to Tsitsipas, the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals champion, who had beaten six-time former Australian Open champion Roger Federer in the fourth round.
“[It’s] part of the game,” said Nadal. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. He’s young. I lost enough times to know that. Everybody needs to go through that experience. Everybody needs to live this experience. Tonight, I played so well. He played a great event. First [major] semi-final for him. He’s young. He has everything to become a great champion. There is not many reasons to be down when you start the season like this, in my opinion, even if it’s normal just straight after the match you can’t be happy. He had a great start of the season.”
Source: ATP World Tour
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