Nadal one win away from Slam record
Spaniard sees off Berrettini to close in on 21st Grand Slam title
Rafael Nadal is within one victory of a record 21st Grand Slam singles title. The 35-year-old Spaniard advanced to the Australian Open final for a sixth time with a 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win yesterday over seventh-seeded Matteo Berrettini.
After the last point, Nadal stopped, beamed a wide grin and punched the air three times.
He arrived in Australia not knowing how long he’d last after months off the tour dealing with an injured foot and then a bout of Covid-19. He skipped Wimbledon after losing in the French Open semifinals to Novak Djokovic and didn’t play at all after August last year.
“Every day has been an issue in terms of problems on the foot. Doubts still here . . . probably for the rest of my career because I have what I have and that’s something we cannot fix,” Nadal said. “But for me, it’s amazing . . . [to] just compete and play tennis at the high level again, facing the most important players of the world.”
Nadal won a tune-up tournament and has taken six straight matches at the first Grand Slam event of the year.
One more, and he’ll break the record of 20 major championships he shares with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Nadal would also become just the fourth man to win all four Grand Slam titles at least twice.
In tomorrow’s final, he will play the winner of last night’s later semifinal between US Open champion Daniil Medvedev and French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Nadal’s win over Wimbledon runner-up Berrettini was his 500th on hard courts at tour level. He’s won the Australian Open once, in 2009.
Adding a second was his lone focus after yet another semifinal win.
“For me, it’s all about the Australian Open more than anything else,” Nadal said in his on-court TV interview. “I have been a little unlucky [here] in my career with some injuries. I played some amazing finals with good chances.”
He has lost four Australian Open finals in the past decade, including five-set classics to Djokovic in 2012 and Federer in 2017, in four sets to Stan Wawrinka in 2014 and a straightsets defeat to Djokovic in 2019.
“I feel very lucky that I won once,” he said. “I never thought about another chance in 2022.”
Nadal broke Berrettini’s opening service games in the first two sets and, after dropping the third set on a rare service lapse, he rallied to finish off the match in just under three hours. That in itself was a relief after his long five-set win over Denis Shapovalov two days earlier in the quarter-finals.
Nadal’s win yesterday was full of twists and turns after he had looked unbeatable when racing through the first two sets in less than 80 minutes.
Nadal was dominant throughout the first two sets, moving the Italian around the court while dictating play. After he took a 4-0 lead in the second set, seventh-seeded Berrettini had won only one point on his second serve in 11 attempts.
With the roof closed on Rod Laver Arena because of heavy rain, and the subsequent high humidity in the building, the ball was heavy and flat, helping Nadal keep the ball in play.
Nearly all the long rallies in the first two sets went the sixth-seeded Spanish left-hander’s way.
But Berrettini turned it around midway through the third set. After not having a break point until then, Berrettini had three in the eighth game of the third set and converted his second, taking a 5-3 lead.
He then held serve in the next game on four consecutive points to send the match to a fourth set.
Nadal made the crucial tactical move midway through the fourth set when he retreated further behind the baseline when returning Berrettini’s serve.
Berrettini had won more than 20 consecutive points on his serve at that point — and Nadal’s move ended up being a stroke of genius.
From that moment on, Berrettini’s first-serve percentage dropped and Nadal pounced to secure the break of serve at 4-3.
It was a service game of huge drama as Berrettini defended two break points before he was ultimately made to pay the price for his first serve and forehand both deserting him when it mattered most.
Nadal’s victory sees him become the fourth-oldest male player in history to reach a Grand Slam final.
● After losing to Ash Barty in her semifinal, Madison Keys decided to give fellow American Danielle Collins a scouting report ahead of the Australian Open title match.
It won’t be easy reading for Collins, who will try to prevent topranked Barty from becoming the first Australian woman in 44 years to win the Australian Open singles championship.
Barty goes into tonight’s final on a 10-match winning streak, having lost just 21 games in six matches without dropping a set. She has also won 81 of her past 82 service games.
Keys, who lost 6-1, 6-3 to Barty in the semifinals on Thursday, wasn’t surprised by those statistics.
“You have a game plan in your head but she’s just executing everything so well,” Keys said. “She’s serving incredibly well, so you don’t get any free points on that.
“Her slice is coming in so much lower and deeper than it was in the past, so it’s hard to do anything on that. Then you try to play to her forehand and she can open you up there.
“I think the rest of us are watching it thinking, ‘wow, this is incredible,’ but when you watch her, she seems completely in control of all of it.”
Collins has beaten Barty only once in four matches, a year ago at an Australian Open tune-up tournament in Adelaide. She secured a spot in her first Grand Slam final with a 6-4, 6-1 win over 2020 French Open champion Iga Swiatek.
The 28-year-old Collins had endometriosis and last April underwent emergency surgery, affecting most of the rest of her season. She’s now just one win away from achieving her childhood dream of becoming a Grand Slam champion.
Her previous best performance at a major was a semifinal loss in Australia in 2019.
Collins said the depth of the women’s game the past few years has given her optimism that she could upset Barty, the Wimbledon and 2019 French Open champion.
“There’s been so many women in the last couple of years who won Slams that were not expected to win Slams, and that gives hope to all the players,” 30th-ranked Collins said. “Whether you’re outside the top 50 or 100, or if you’re in the top 10, everyone has a chance of making deep runs. I’ve used that mentality and just tried to do the best I can, and tried to believe in how I’m playing.”