Nadal powers No. 1 Spain into ATP Cup final
Rafael Nadal was coming off a really late night, and was determined to finish work before midnight on the eve of the inaugural ATP Cup final against Serbia.
After more than 20 tight games against 20-year-old Alex de Minaur’s relentless attack, Nadal converted his first service break to clinch the second set and then it was all one-way in a 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 win as he secured Spain’s semifinal win against host Australia on Saturday night.
Top-ranked Nadal and his Spanish team will face No. 2-ranked Djokovic’s Serbian team on Sunday night for the first title in the new 24-team international tournament. Djokovic beat Daniil Medvedev 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 to secure Serbia’s win over Russia in the first of the semifinals.
Nadal said it’s been a difficult few days for
Spain. The Davis Cup champions played the group stage in Perth and had a transcontinental trip to Sydney for the playoffs.
He didn’t want any repeats of the quarterfinals the previous night, when he lost to David Goffin — just his second loss in a singles match since a semifinal defeat to Roger Federer at Wimbledon — and then didn’t win the deciding doubles encounter against Belgium until after 1 a.m. in a match tiebreaker.
So Nadal basically finished a quarterfinal and a semifinal on the same date. He didn’t get to bed until 5:30 a.m., and wasn’t happy about the scheduling.
“Yeah, has been a tough couple of days, especially for Team Spain … with jet lag to make things even a little bit more difficult,” Nadal said. “But here we are. Has been important day for us. Roberto played an amazing match, and I had a great comeback.”
Roberto Bautista Agut had earlier beaten Nick Kyrgios 6-1, 6-4 to give Spain the lead, and Nadal’s win secured Spain’s victory before the doubles where Pablo Carreno Busta and Feliciano Lopez won to give Spain a 3-0 sweep. Carreno Busta and Lopez beat Australia’s John Peers and Chris Guccione 6-2, 6-7 (6-8), 10-4.
Nadal hadn’t lost backto-back singles matches since 2016. De Minaur took the challenge to him, getting a service break to open and, after missing set points on Nadal’s serve in the 9th game, closing out the first set relatively quickly.
“I wasn’t surprised. He’s young. He has a lot of energy. He plays with a lot of passion,” Nadal said of de Minaur. “And I was a little bit lower energy than usual. That’s why he was able to take advantage. And I think when the match was going on, I was able to play better and better, to find a little bit better the rhythm and the energy back to my body.”
Nadal led Spain to the Davis Cup title at Madrid last November and is aiming to make it back-toback triumphs in international team events.
Elsewhere: Madison Keys came from a break and set down to beat twotime Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the Brisbane International semifinals. The American won nine of 10 games in her mid-match recovery against the tournament’s 2011 champion to beat Kvitova 3-6, 6-2, 6-3. Keys will play defending Brisbane champion Karolina Pliskova in Sunday afternoon’s final. Pliskova beat Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka 6-7 (10-12), 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 after saving a match point. Pliskova will attempt to win her third Brisbane title in four years.
ETC.
Soccer: By gaining redemption for one of the darkest days in its history, Southampton succeeded in pushing record-breaking Liverpool even closer to its first English league title in 30 years. A 2-1 win at Leicester gave Southampton a measure of revenge for its humiliating 9-0 loss to the same opponent in the Premier League 21⁄
2 months ago. That loss was the club’s biggest ever and the heaviest home defeat in the country’s long history of top-flight soccer. At the same time, it gave Liverpool a chance to pull further clear at the top in its quest to reclaim the biggest prize in English soccer. The Reds didn’t waste it, beating Tottenham 1-0 a couple of hours later thanks to Roberto Firmino’s first-half strike. … A fine finish from coveted striker Moussa Dembele and a deflected effort from Maxwell Cornet helped Lyon rally to beat Bordeaux 2-1 in the French league.
Skiing: Riding a wild second run down the steep Adelboden slope in Switzerland, Zan Kranjec won a World Cup giant slalom to lead the season-long standings. Kranjec had been sixth fastest in the morning run and his aggressive style took him 0.29 seconds ahead of Filip Zubcic, who got a career-best result. … Corinne Suter’s consistent year in downhill racing finally earned her a first World Cup win. Suter defied poor visibility in a race twice delayed to finish 0.29 seconds ahead of Nicol Delago. Suter’s Swiss teammate Michelle Gisin was third, 0.98 back, two weeks after also placing third in a World Cup slalom.