Delighted Nadal clinches title at Melbourne event in first tournament since August
Rafael Nadal kept up his preparations for the Australian Open by clinching the Melbourne Summer Set title with a straight-sets victory over American qualifier Maxime Cressy.
The 35-year-old Spaniard, playing in his first tournament since August 2021, triumphed 7-6 (6), 6-3 in the final.
Nadal's trip to Australia had been in doubt due to a lingering foot injury and a recent bout of coronavirus. But, having already dispatched Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis and Finland' s emil ru usu vu ori this week, he showed little signs of rustiness and collected the 89th trophy of his illustrious career with victory in an hour and 44 minutes.
In his first ATP Tour final, Cressy made Nadal work for the win, saving five break points in a close-run first set and also being denied a set point in the tie break.
With the start of the first grand slam of 2022 just eight days away, Nadal – Australian Open champion in 2009 – was then forced to recover from being broken in the third game of the second set to claim silver ware. It meant the world No 6 maintained his run of clinching at least one tour-level title every year since 2004. He said: “I feel privileged and a very lucky guy to be here again.i am coming back from some challenging moments in terms of injuries, so I can’t be happier. It means a lotto be back and with a trophy in my hands.”
“This court has always been very, very special for me. The Rod Laver Arena is very, very special for everyone and it is more special because of you guys. You guys are a great crowd and I can’t thank you enough.”
Elsewhere, Canada won the ATP Cup with victory over Spain.
Felix Auger-aliassime clinched the title in Sydney with a 7-6 (3), 6-3 victory against Roberto Bautista Agut to give his country an insurmountable 2-0 lead.
Canada, who over came great Britain in the group stage and beat defending champions Russia in the semi-finals, led 1-0 thanks to Denis Shapovalov's 6-4,6-3 success over pablo Carreno Busta.
Beaten finalists Spain were also runners-up in the inaugural edition of the tournamentin 2020, when their team contained 20-time grand slam winner Nadal.
“The emotions are unbelievable,” said Auger-aliassime. “There’s no better feeling than winning. We left everything out there. We came back from far in this competition, losing our first four matches. But we never stopped believing. i think that’s very important. We trust each other to the highest level. Denis and I, everybody in the team — Brayden [Schnur] played in singles, Steven [Diez] played in doubles and they’ve been supporting us all week. They’ve got a tournament next week, but they’re here every day ready to practise, ready to support us.
“All their egos are aside and we really trusted each other along the way and it came down to the perfect result. I’m super thrilled for everybody in the whole team and myself, of course.”
Top seed Gael Monfils captured his 11th ATP Tour title by overcoming Karen Khachanov in the Adelaide International One final. The Frenchman, who did not drop a set all week, won 6-4, 6-4 to begin his season in perfect fashion. “I want to say thanks to my team,” Monfils said. “We have had some tough moments, we lost a little bit of faith but we came back strong from July last year.”