Rafael Nadal broke the all-time Grand Slam record with his victory over Daniil Medvedev at the Australian Open on Sunday. The accomplishment itself, however, pales in comparison to the manner in which he secured it.
His hollow-cheeked face drenched in sweat, Rafael Nadal stared into the abyss of the all-too-familiar anguish of Australian Open disappointment and said, “Not again. Not this time.”
And so it was that a rusty, COVID-recovering, 35-year-old veteran staged the most thrilling comeback in tennis history on Sunday in Melbourne. It was a win so inspiring that it immediately transcended the tennis bubble. It represents the gold standard of everything good sport has to offer: the resiliency of the human spirit, the power of determination, and…yeah…the thrill of watching the most unlikely series of events unfold before your eyes.
And all at a tournament that was in shambles just over two weeks ago.
There was controversy, you see. Through no fault of Nadal’s, prohibitive pre-tournament favorite Novak Djokovic spent the week prior to the Australian Open splitting his time between a detention center and court rooms. The reason? Australia’s visa requirements for COVID vaccination and Djokovic’s lack of one. The end result was deportation for Djokovic and a gaping hole in the Oz Open draw.
In disgust, more than one tennis pundit declared that if Nadal won the event the win would come with an asterisk. Here is the Grandstand’s own Ricky Dimon summarizing the rants of ESPN commentator Cliff Drysdale on the Djokovic deportation:
An asterisk. A small note to indicate that Nadal didn’t *really* win, because how could it possibly count if he didn’t have to beat Djokovic? How, indeed.
Certainly, Sunday’s final will never be called the greatest tennis match of all time. There was just too much diabolically bad tennis in the first 3 sets for it to come within spitting distance of any of a dozen or so brilliant matches in the Open Era. But for all that, it may still be the greatest win of all time. What Nadal managed to do from two sets down and a 0-40 hole at 2-3 in the third is an almost novel-like story arc (Netflix documentary, I’m looking at you).
Nadal scrapped. He clawed and fought. He recognized that pitting his forehand against the fearsome Medvedev backhand was going to earn him a quick trip to the locker room. So he dug in his bag of tricks, and deep down in the dustiest corner he found a different backhand, a bludgeoning weapon of a stroke tagged with the “there is no way I can keep that up for an entire match” label and subsequently abandoned years ago. He brushed off the cobwebs, gave it a little sniff, and unleashed it at the Medvedev forehand. He took the third set and gave himself a lifeline.
Medvedev took his own turn playing poorly in the fourth. The Russian had leaden legs; the slight desperation born of fatigue (and probably panic at the match slipping away from him) had him going for winners too early and seemed to compromise his ability to play tactically. To the delight of the wildly pro-Nadal crowd, it was the 35-year old scampering around the baseline like an unusually muscular woodland creature enjoying his first spring in the forest. It was, in a word, sorcery–a special Nadal brand of magic of the watch-this-I-can-ignore-my-screaming-joints-better-than-you-sonny sort.
Enter set five.
Taking the third and fourth sets quite literally out of nowhere was impressive, for sure. But by far the most notable thing of an already notable match was the manner in which he absorbed the horror of dropping serve at 5-4 while serving for the championship, giving his hard-earned break back to Medvedev. His Aussie Open demons had already twice materialized in squandering a break lead in the fifth and losing the match. The crowd was thinking it, I was thinking it…and Nadal was certainly thinking it.
As he revealed in an interview with Eurosport, “After that (being broken in the fifth set), I said, ‘F**k, one more time a break up in the fifth and I’m going to lose again, like in 2012, like in 2017. But I said, ‘Okay. I lost (the break). I was nervous, I make a double-fault, I make a mistake. So I need to keep fighting, no? I can lose the match or he can beat me, but I can’t give up, no? Even if I’m destroyed, I need to stay (in it) mentally.’ And that’s what I did.”
As if it were just that simple–like his hopes hadn’t been dashed on that exact court in that EXACT way twice before. And yet he came right back in Medvedev’s service game at 5-5 and broke the Russian again…and with the break, the opportunity to serve for the championship. Again. Which he did flawlessly.
If that’s not one of the most effective “you can all shut up now” messages of all time, I don’t know what is. Nobody with any kind of credibility would dare dismiss this victory as anything other than the miracle it was.
Djokovic wasn’t able to compete, and that is a shame for him and the tournament…but what Nadal did–defeating the reigning U.S. Open champion (something Djokovic was UNABLE to do) for No. 21, for the double-career Grand Slam–is so extraordinary that a talk track that it “didn’t count” is actually embarrassing. So let’s not.
This is tennis, people. And it is glorious.
If we are objective enough, we will all accept that injury is Rafa’s biggest opponent – not Djokovic, not Federer and not big hitters. When Rafa is fit he can smother anyone on any surface.
Rafa could so easily have won the AO 2022 final in 4 sets considering the number of close calls that didn’t go his way. He was outplayed in the 1st set but after that he took control of the match. Rafa served for sets 2,3,4 before finally winning the 5th set. Medvedev did not get a set point after the first set except for the TB.
Sure.
That qualifies Rafa for the GIPOAT title – Greatest Injured Player of All Time.
No less than I expect from TrollEnroe.
“When Rafa is fit he can smother anyone on any surface.”
Wait. Does this means that Rafa only lost when he was not fit?
He should have really worked more on his fitness. If he did, he would have had 40-50 GS, at least, no?
The one saving with tennis is that results are decided by the players on court and not by a panel of judges. A panel of judges, that would have been made up of all the experts who picked Medvedev to win, would never have made Rafa the winner, regardless of how well he played because they were prejudiced against him for wahtever reason.
Corr – The one saving grace…….
Record breaking tv numbers for ao this time…men’s final highest in last 4 years ..women’s record n understandably so..
Rafa n Ash made lot of money for AO n channel 9
Shove this down the throat of any djoko fan who said AO would flop without him. Sorry the 9 time champion was not missed by anyone hehe
https://tvblackbox.com.au/page/2022/01/31/nines-record-breaking-coverage-of-the-australian-open-2022-secures-12-5-million-national-viewers/
Interesting. Men’s Final scored the highest rating in 4 years. That was the year Fed beat Cilic wasn’t it? 🙂
All Rafans need to watch this ..it’s a very nice edit ..film about road to 21
https://youtu.be/n7G4618GseI
Yes!👏👏👏👏
2008 – Grass Sweep(Queens, Wimby)
2010 – Clay sweep (Montecarlo, Rome, Madrid, RG)
2013 – American summer series sweep (Roger, Cincy, USO)
2022 – Asian AO sweep (Melbourne Summer Set, AO)
Sanju please keep giving us more articles, videos and interviews of THE GOAT of tennis Rafael Nadal. Keep it coming. It’s very much appreciated.
Vamos Rafa THE GOAT.
I agree! Keep the good feelings going! I still have not come down off the high I experienced when Rafa won!
It’s been great to see fans of other players coming her to guve their congratulations and join in the happiness!
I may never come down off this cloud!
🤗
That was a great video! Brought me to tears!
🥲
It’s festive here haha. My optimism,that was there from the start of the AO, has unsurprisingly grown by leaps and bounds. I think Rafa has at winning every slam he enters this year as long as he is healthy. His game on grass is very good and he got to semis getting to semis in his last two visits. Novak aside, the rest of the field is not great on grass.
USO has been a lucky slam for Rafa so always hopeful about it. I don’t need to say much about RG.
We can only imagine how mucb self belief this win would have given to Rafa. I think the guy would now believe he can overcome ANY obstacle. Sure, he’ll be against the odds against Novak but his game is evolving. The serve which becomes his biggest liability is going to hold up better.I see improvements to his slice. I see his net game getting more mature.
NEVER count this guy out of anything.
Predictions are often meaningless but if I were to predict, I have Rafa winning RG and one more slam. Let’s see how his body holds up and what his challengers have to say.
Agreed. I was with you then during the AO, thinking that Rafa would win the final in four sets, but none of us could foresee that Rafa would have a bad serving day at the final. We are not complaining now that he has won his 21st slam in such a dramatic fashion!
I could see that Rafa was playing well even against opponents like Khachanov, Shapo and Berrittini before the final, there’s no reason to believe that he couldn’t do the same in the final, even though Meddy certainly is/was a more formidable opponent.
Rafa will certainly be the hot favourite at the FO if he remains fit and healthy; I’m not thinking too far ahead now, let’s wait and see him winning the FO first, and I think he could get back to number one ranking too during the clay season.
Rafa’s strategies worked well during the AO; Moya is such a good coach, working out winning strategies with Rafa even at this stage of his career, and concentrating specifically on improving his serves and shortening points. I’m so happy that Rafa is still winning slam at age 35! What a legend, and what a warrior!
VR,
You said that you would give your thoughts about how Rafa won. Cheryl wrote a great blog about Rafa’s win. She mentioned Rafa taking out of his bag of tricks, an old backhand shot to get the advantage.
I would love to hear your thoughts about how Rafa turned it around.
I am still on cloud nine. I keep watching the match, I can’t get enough of his comeback. As long as his health is okay, I am looking forward to seeing him continue his schedule with the momentum of this historic win behind him.
One more lovely article for Rafans
https://medium.com/@hsm2310/rafa-greatest-tennis-player-of-all-time-passion-humility-excellence-7187b07f903f
Vamosrafa and luckystar, please we need your detailed technical analysis on what rafa did to win that final match especially from the 3rd set and what he needs to do game-wise going forward to win against his rivals, win slams and win against the next gen.
Carlos moya said in an interview that Rafa surprised him in the final, that his tennis IQ is unmatched and that he reads the game better than anybody else. Please elaborate on this with respect to the above questions.
Please I hope both of you don’t mind, your great knowledge on the technical aspects of tennis is really insightful to all of us rafans and highly appreciated.
Happy .there was an Infosys AI powered article on the changed strategies
https://ausopen.com/articles/news/analysis-nadal-steps-takes-control-and-creates-history
My basic qn is why does Rafa not use this stance n approach always by default
That was interesting but VR gets more into the technical aspects of Rafa’s game. So he just started serving better when he couldn’t buy a first serve in the first two sets? He took a more aggressive stance? There was more to it than that.
Perhaps Rafa had too much respect for Meddy and his game. He might be nervous too, hence couldn’t serve well his first serve, giving Meddy opportunities to break serve several times in set one and two.
It’s when his back was against the wall that he finally raised his level (do or die situation when he’s 0-40 and 2-3 down in set three). It would be game over if he lost serve then as he might lose in straight sets.
He also realized that Meddy wasn’t great at the net hence he became more aggressive, throwing in drop shots and forcing Meddy to come to the net and passing him there.
I also felt that Rafa had calmed down and was able to serve better, throwing in some S&V and his serve out wide at the Ad court was lethal, that even Meddy’s DHBH return wasn’t able to handle that.
As I’d mentioned earlier on in my other posts, Rafa had paced himself nicely this AO, from R1 right up to the final, he had not expended too much energy in his matches (except the QF) hence he had enough energy to go the distance in the final against a guy who’s ten years younger. Meddy imo had expended too much energy in his matches and was more tired than Rafa when the final went the distance.
The key for Rafa in his matches was to come out and served well, played close to the baseline and be more aggressive, and his game was simply too good for most of the players hence he was able to win the first two sets in his matches, that way he won’t need to chase from behind in his matches.
I was of the opinion that he would and could do the same in the final, and would win in four sets, but, he couldn’t serve well in the first two sets unlike in his other matches!
I suspect Rafa had too much bad experiences in the AO finals, hence he was very nervous, and so couldn’t impose his aggressive game on Meddy. Once he calmed down, he could do that mid way through the third set and onwards.
Going forward, I trust that Rafa will carry on with this aggressive approach in his matches, and when he’s calm enough, his first serve will land in at a higher percentage than now and he will be hard to beat.
good post, yes agree with all the points.
Hello all, yes I’ll share my thoughts later this evening or tomorrow. One of the key shots that propelled Rafa to victory was his backhand slice. I pointed out before the match how crucial that shot is against Med’s flatter groundstrokes and how much I expect Rafa to deploy it in different ways.
Just look at the quality of his slicing in this 40-shot rally. This one had me jump off the couch watching live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Twek0FKmk
@Mr.Dimon, please help with fixing this issue of having to type username and email for every post :/
Looking forward to reading your analysis vr! This site is so much better when you are here..😀😀
Full on love affair and bromance between Rafa and Roger going on https://mobile.twitter.com/RafaelNadal/status/1489271400623796225
VR you in uk, you should go 🙂
It’s tough to even think they were hardcore rivals at one point of time n their fans were at each other’s throat .credit to them both for having such a great relationship with time
haha yeah I registered my interest in getting the tickets today. Fingers crossed!
VR you can be fedal bench coach for doubles:-) during changeovers:-)
hahaha. No harm dreaming right? 😀 To be fair I can try to be more vocal than the great man Bjorn. He goes all quiet when Fed and Rafa are playing haha.
The closest I have come to sharing my two cents on Rafa’s game are in a dream. A very vivid dream. It happened the night before his encounter with Blake in IW 2008. I kept telling Rafa to go for DTL forehands as blake leaves so much space in that corner and to change his return position to surprise him. It was frustratinf because he had a 0-3 record against Blake and tactically wasn’t playing him right. I kid you not, he DID those things LOL. To be fair that match was key to turning things around on hard courts. He never looked back after that and just kept building. The loss at the hands of Tsonga in 2008 AO kind of jolted Rafa I think.
I think Rafa and Roger have come to realise that their rivalry is a positive thing and it has been a great in defining their careers. I am sure that they will both collaborate to take tennis further when they retire as Rafa hinted in this tweet.
https://twitter.com/christophclarey/status/1488896030192009220?s=20&t=XyCehJTrybEEqk80Vn9_CA
Great insight into the AO 2022 Final
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6BNlGFBBQo