Rafa Nadal left his soul to enter the semifinals of the Australian Open beating Canadian Denis Shapovalov in five sets in one of the toughest matches of his career. The Spaniard suffered from dehydration during the match that forced him to take medication in the fourth round. The gestures of pain of the winner of 20 Grand Slams were evident.
Now his coach, Carlos Moyá, explained that Rafa Nadal lost “four kilos” during the match, dropping from his usual 85 kilos to 81. “The dehydration was great. It usually suffers in those conditions. He had done all the things well, but what we did not expect was that it was going to happen at the hour and a half of the game », he said.
Rafa Nadal took this Wednesday off before facing the semifinal against Matteo Berrettini on Friday. Not in vain, the best Spanish athlete of all time did not even go out to rally for a while as an unequivocal symptom of his exhaustion and he barely dedicated himself to walking around Melbourne for a while while he regains weight and hydrates.
“He recovers quickly from heat stroke. I haven’t been with him this morning but I imagine he’s had better days . The key is that he will have an extra day that will come in handy because he will play on Friday. Not even in the most optimistic scenario did we see each other in the semifinals, but Nadal always comes back and always goes to war. You have the letter that it is Rafa, “added Moyá.
In addition, the coach could not avoid the question of becoming the best tennis player of all time. “Obviously you dream but you don’t speak. We don’t talk about the 21st, we know it’s there and the pressure is there , the way to deal with it is to not give it importance. It will be discussed if it is achieved from Sunday, ”he settled in an interview with Cope.
