Team Spain kicks off its United Cup campaign in Sydney with defending Australian Open champion Rafael Nadal taking on Great Britain’s Cam Norrie.
Australia has taken advantage of the presence of most of the ATP and WTA in the island nation with the inaugural tournament they’re calling the United Cup. Eighteen nations have teams participating in Sydney, Perth, and Brisbane. As part of the group stage, each round consists of 2 men’s singles matches, 2 women’s singles matches and a mixed doubles match.
Rafael Nadal will take the court first in the men’s singles for team Spain against Great Britain’s Cam Norrie. The defending Australian and French Open champion had a nearly non-existent summer hard court swing after struggling to recover from an abdominal tear he sustained at Wimbledon, where he withdrew prior to his semifinal match with Nick Kyrgios.
He limped through the remainder of the 2022 season, which culminated in a loss in the round robin stage of the Nitto ATP Finals in November. The Spaniard, ranked second in the world, will ease into play against familiar opponent Cam Norrie — world No. 14 and current top British ATP player.
Norrie did not play well in Australia last season. He failed to win a single match Down Under; he lost all three of his round robin matches at the Aussie Open lead-up event, the ATP Cup. He then crashed out in Melbourne in the first round to American Sebastian Korda. Fortunately for Norrie, there is far less COVID-19 drama this year, which should help the Brit settle into the first events of the season a bit better.
Still, it’s not great news for Norrie. He has never taken a single set from Nadal in their four previous meetings, including a straight-set win for Nadal at the 2021 edition of the Australian Open. Nadal has plenty of rust to shake loose, so this is a decent opportunity for Norrie to snag a set. But with Nadal’s famous off-season regimen, he will almost certainly show up fit and ready to fight.
Cheryl pick: Nadal in 3
Ricky pick: Nadal in 2
The match went to 3 sets đź‘Ť but Nadal is about to lose.
Anyways some pages in this website are not working.
Wow. Cam over Rafa . . .