Rafa Nadal annuls Popyrin in his premiere at Roland Garros

Rafael Nadal’s path to his fourteenth Roland Garros begins as the previous one ended: with an unappealable victory. The manacorense surpassed the young Alexei Popyrin, whom he beat in three sets (6-3, 6-2, 7-6) with the superiority that is assumed to the king of the earth, including a moment of weakness in the third that he needed of a champion reaction. After exaggerated suffering and even the elimination of some of the favorites at the first turn, Rafa proved to have learned his lesson and cruised the Philippe Chatrier to make his way to the second round. Nadal debuted with an old man known as Popyrin. The Australian, noted for his aggressive game and adaptable to the fast track, was reunited with Rafa after the duel between the two in the second round of the Mutua Madrid Open. Then, the Spaniard made good his superior experience and talent to dismount his tall rival, who ended up giving up without putting up too much resistance to Nadal.In a simple disposition and without too much fanfare, Rafa limited himself to maintaining his service and waiting for his moment in the first set, while greasing the machinery in an always complicated Grand Slam debut. For a lot of training and competition on clay, Roland Garros is different and Nadal, at almost 35 years old, knows the importance of going little by little until reaching 100%. Popyrin put up resistance from his games to serve, but the irregularity that He has accompanied him in so many games, something logical due to his youth, he visited him in the eighth game, key in the future of the first set. At the first opportunity, Nadal broke the service of his rival and was placed in a position to close the set, something he would do with outstanding sufficiency minutes later.Nadal felt better every minute of the match that passed, with a service that earned him free points or, at least, the possibility of negotiating the point from an advantageous position. The right also gave points to the manacorense, who culminated his great moment with a achievement of three games, two of them to the rest, which left him at the gates of 2-0 on the set counter. , to the rest, the high balls hurt Popyrin, who from his almost two meters high could not find a way to survive the combination of heights of the thirteen-time champion in Paris. The second set would end up in Rafa’s pocket more easily than the first and, after just an hour and a quarter of the match, the big favorite was already one set away from the second round. The first two sets had been sewing and singing, but in the third the surprise awaited Nadal and the Chatrier audience. A minimal relaxation seized the tennis of the Balearic, while Popyrin, with nothing to lose, began to connect shots that previously did not appear. Thus, the break fell in this case on the side of the Australian, who solidly served to put a very dangerous 2-5 in the third, about to send the match to the fourth set. Champion comeback What had been an immaculate performance by Nadal He happened to have a stain on his record, needing a champion comeback to avoid the first set lost already in the opening match. Rafa changed his strategy and went on to force Popyrin on each serve from the Australian, forcing him to always play one more ball, crying out for the vertigo that the Australian would end up taking over.What seemed like a simple resolution turned into a break for Rafa who sent the decision to the tie break. The game was still in play, but the moral blow of being the winner of the third set had buried Popyrin’s chances. Sudden death would only have one tennis player on clay, the 2020 champion and great favorite, who arrives thrown into the second round of Roland Garros, where an old man known as Richard Gasquet awaits him.