Rafa Nadal added one more victory after beating Tommy Paul in two sets (6-0 and 7-6) in a match that exceeded two hours of play and in which he again suffered from the humidity. The Spaniard has already chained 13 victories this season, in what is his best start to the course in his entire career and will fight for the ticket to the final of the Acapulco Mexican Open against the virtual number one, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, with whom he starred in the Australian Open 2022 final.
At 35 years old, Rafa Nadal is facing his best start to the season in his long career. The Spaniard chained his thirteenth consecutive victory to access his fifth semifinals in the Mexican Open by beating the American Tommy Paul, number 39 in the ATP, in a battle of more than two hours. Before the first half hour of play was completed, the Spaniard won the first set, without letting Paul score any game -it is the second ‘donut’ that the Balearic achieves in the tournament-.
But in the second set, the match was much closer. The Spaniard gave up his first serve and although he had the opportunity to recover it to make it 2-2, he was unable to resume the initiative with his serve and conceded a break again. There were several service losses for one and the other, forcing the set to be decided in the tiebreak . There, the Spaniard also began to tow, although he ended up converting the first match point to close the match with a final result of 6-0 and 7-6 (5), in two hours and four minutes of play.
Reunion with Medvedev
Nadal reached the semifinals of the Acapulco tournament without losing a set along the way and will meet again with Daniil Medvedev, with the ticket to the final at stake. It will be the reunion of the last protagonists of the Australian Open final, a match that the Spaniard came back from two sets down to become the first tennis player on the men’s circuit with 21 Grand Slams.
Medvedev, who will appear in the ATP ranking as the new number one starting next Monday, had a more comfortable match in the quarterfinals against Nishioka, whom he won with a result of 6-2 and 6-3 in just over one hour meeting The Russian, like Nadal, has also not dropped a set on his way to the semifinals in Acapulco.
It will be the sixth time that Nadal and Medvedev meet, with four wins for the Spaniard against one for the Russian and the first time they have done so in an ATP 500 category tournament. The other semi-final in Acapulco will be starred by Stefanos Tsitsipas and Cameron Norrie.
