In Cincinnati, Rafael Nadal could have taken advantage of a difficult scenario but not impossible. He takes advantage of a hypothetical round of 16 loss to Daniil Medvedev and wins the tournament to return to the top of the table.
Not surprisingly, after retiring in the Wimbledon semifinal and giving up the ‘1000’ last week in Montreal, the Spanish champion crashed in the first round against Borna Coric in his debut. There are still many things to polish for the US Open.
“Obviously, it wasn’t my best match, but I suppose it can happen since I haven’t played a competitive match in a long time and historically I have never done too well in this tournament. I can only congratulate Borna [Coric], who has played an incredible match.
I missed a handful of chances to win the tie break in the first set and didn’t take advantage of a 0-30 serve situation from him early in the third set. This is tennis, when you’re up against players who serve very well and play at a very high level it’s hard to win if you don’t take your chances.
However, I am glad that Borna has regained the best level of him after all the injuries. He today he has been simply better than me, “explained the 22-time Slam winner with his usual elegance. The US Open is just under two weeks away.
“Let’s say it’s hard to get something positive out of a loss like that. It’s clear that I still have to improve in many aspects, I’ll have to train a lot. The ideal thing when you come back from an injury is to win the first match to recover your automatisms, but I couldn’t do it.
The priority for me is to be physically fit. The last month and a half has not been easy and that obviously affects my confidence, I have been too conservative in the important moments and I have made many mistakes,” said Nadal, who was forced to miss the semifinal with Kyrgios at Wimbledon and skipping the first game of the North American stage as a precaution due to an adductor problem.
Rubin opens up on Rafa Nadal
Chanda Rubin said Rafael Nadal would definitely have liked to get a few more matches under his belt in the lead-up to the US Open. “Yeah, certainly, Nadal would have wanted to get a few more matches and this was not an easy one.
He’s lost a charge a couple times before. So, you know, this is a match, he had to battle in, but he thought when he won that second set that he had, kind of, turned things around that,” she said. “He was gonna get that extra push.
He had 0-30 early in the third just was a little bit off, and that’s kind of to be expected because Nadal is so underdone in matches recently and the first match on hardcourts, it takes a little getting used to. Hopefully, he’ll get right back to it and will kind of build on this even though he lost it,” she added.
