Rafael Nadal looked to have blown his chances of becoming the first male player to win 21 Grand Slam titles. But then in true Nadalesque spirit, he made a brilliant comeback in the final of the 2022 Australian Open, scraping past Daniil Medvedev to get to the summit.
The race for the most Grand Slam wins on the men’s tour became a three-horse battle when Novak Djokovic began galloping towards Nadal and Roger Federer.
At the start of the 2022 season, all three tennis legends, Nadal, Federer and Djokovic were tied at 20 Grand Slam victories each and an important year loomed.
What made the spectacle a tad more interesting was the likes of Medvedev, Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas were breathing down the necks of these champions, somewhat queering the plot for the Big Three.
In all of this, and against multiple odds, Nadal would go on to win the 2022 Australian Open men’s singles title to edge forward on the titles race. In this piece, we look at how this transpired.
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The start of the tournament began in a spectacular manner with the world number one and top seed Novak Djokovic sent back home by the Australian Minister of Immigration Alex Hawke.
This was after Djokovic had been granted a medical exemption to participate in the tournament despite his refusal to take the vaccination against Covid-19.
On January 16, 2022, 12 days after Djokovic had announced he would be competing in the tournament, the Serb was forced to fly back home following the cancellation of his visa.
What that meant was that the three-time defending champion and the nine-time winner at Melbourne Park wasn’t a part of the draw to challenge the likes of Nadal and Medvedev.
With Federer having ruled himself out anyway because of a knee injury – he had already played the last singles match of his career by this time – the onus was on Nadal to make it count.
Zverev, Rublev Fall Early
With Djokovic and Federer unable to participate, among those who were around, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev were expected to put up a strong fight.
Zverev reached the fourth round but fell in straight sets to Denis Shapovalov while Rublev’s journey was ended in the third by Marin Cilic.
Tsitsipas had his difficulties, having been taken to four sets by Sebastian Baez and Benoit Paire while Taylor Fritz pushed him into a fifth in their round of 16 encounter but he managed to make it to the semifinal.
Medvedev finally put it across Tsitsipas while Nadal, who had needed five sets against Shapovalov in the quarterfinals, got past the 2021 Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini in his semifinal.
The stage was set for Medvedev to add to his Grand Slam kitty, having already grabbed the US Open title in 2021, or for Nadal to make it to the pinnacle with a 21st major win.
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Nadal Mounts Stirring Comeback for an Improbable Final Win
Two sets into this final encounter between Nadal and Medvedev, the writing seemed to be on the wall for the Spaniard.
He had fought the way he always does but against the younger legs of Medvedev, Nadal had found himself a tad wanting. With the margin of error that small, Nadal had fallen two sets to love behind and his fans, although hoping for a comeback of a lifetime, might have sensed the end was nigh.
Except that it wasn’t.
Except that Nadal did what he is expected to do, again.
From two sets down, the former world number one kept Medvedev on court for five hours and 24 minutes as he clawed back to register a 2-6, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 victory.
Despite been supported by a partisan crowd, Nadal found it tough to win points early in the encounter and it was only in the second set did his customary fighting spirit shone through.
He had a chance to serve it out at 5-3 in the second and then took a 5-3 lead in the tie-breaker only for Medvedev to come back and win the set.
Two sets up, Medvedev then raced to a 3-2 lead and had three break-points in the next game to all but seal the deal.
Nadal managed to save all three, and when he got himself a chance to break Medvedev at 4-4, he did so with ease – off the second chance he got.
By this time, Medvedev had managed to turn the Melbourne crowd against him. They were always supporting Nadal but a few sarcastic jibes from Medvedev made him boo him through the rest of the encounter.
An easy hold helped Nadal reduce the Medvedev lead but the Russian had another couple of early break chances to go 2-0 up in the fourth set.
Nadal broke his now-tiring opponent in the third game, then dropped his own serve before making it a second break in succession to take 3-2 lead in the set. It had taken him seven break-points in the fifth game to go ahead.
From there on, both players held serves despite Nadal’s first serve issues, allowing him to level things out and push the encounter into a decider.
Interestingly, Nadal, who was got only only half of his first serves in in the fourth set, improved to 70.5% in the final set, winning 71% of them. What made the contest so beautiful to watch was Medvedev found his own mojo and won 66% of the 76% first serve points he got in.
The other fifth set stats also favoured Medvedev – he out-aced Nadal, and had a +6 differential between winners and unforced errors to Nadal’s +1. It was Nadal’s slightly superior second serve win percentage (46 to 40) and return points won (40.5 to 36.4) that turned the encounter in his favour.
Nadal got himself the first break of the final set in the fifth game, was two points away from the winning it at 5-3, 30-30 and then again at 5-4, 30-0 up but then failed to serve it out there.
But just when one thought Medvedev had turned things around in his favour, he dropped his serve yet again.
This time around though, Nadal did not leave too much to chance, racing off to a 40-0 lead and won off that very first match-point what was dubbed as the “Miracle in Melbourne” by the commentators.
Nadal has been involved in many a comeback wins but even by those standards, this was something else given he was coming off a long layoff because of a foot injury.
He admitted as much in his post-match speech. The Spaniard said:
“Tonight has been very special. I give it everything that I have inside, believe me. I am super, super-tired in all ways. I even can’t celebrate.”
“But was the day to give everything, no? I enjoyed. I enjoyed the fight. I enjoyed the emotions. At the end have this trophy with me means everything today, no?”
What Happened Next?
It turned out to be an interesting season, 2022. Djokovic returned to participate at the French Open but fell to Nadal in the quarterfinal, with the Spaniard going on to win his 14th title and the 22nd major.
The Serb himself would lift the Wimbledon title with a four-set victory over Nick Kyrgios before Carlos Alcaraz announced himself to the world with a sterling set of performances that would see him win the US Open and end the season as the world number one.
Medvedev wouldn’t reach the heights of making a Grand Slam final again in 2022, losing in the fourth round at both, the French Open and US Open. He would also miss Wimbledon because of the organisers’ decision not to allow Russian and Belarusian players in the tournament.
Such seemed to be the effect of that final’s defeat that Medvedev’s best showing at even the Masters 1000 circuit would be a semifinal appearance at the Cincinnati Masters.
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