The Nadal of 2022 is the best Nadal in history , and we are not talking about his consideration as a GOAT after the conquest of the Australian Open . For the first time in his 19 seasons as a professional, Rafa finishes the inaugural tour of the season, the ocean tour, with an immaculate record of victories and two tournaments to his credit. Nadal has achieved perfection at the start of the year against all odds and cabals point to a great season under his belt if injuries don’t get in his way.
The logical precedent to go to is 2009 , the year in which Nadal won his first and, until a few days ago, the only Australian Open. In the previous week of competition for the Balearic Islands, a defeat against Gael Monfils (6-4, 6-4) in the Doha Tournament, in the quarterfinals, prevented him from returning to Spain with the full under his arm. It was an immense Nadal , with matches to remember like the semifinal against Fernando Verdasco and the final against Roger Federer in Melbourne, but not an unbeatable Nadal like the one in 2022.
Berankis, Griekspoor –for WO–, Ruusuvuori and Cressy were Nadal’s victims in the Melbourne ATP 250 Summer Set, unbeatable preparation to later knock down Giron, Hanfmann, Khachanov, Mannarino, Shapovalov, Berrettini and, finally, Daniil Medvedev in an Australian Open for history.
In just one month of ATP competition, Nadal has already added 2,250 points, which places him first in the Race and points him as a candidate for number one in the coming months. It should be remembered that Rafa has passed one of his cursed sections of the calendar with honors, and now he will rest until the North American tour in which he plans to link the ATP 500 tournaments in Acapulco and the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells and Miami, all on track hard, surface on which it has conquered the sky in Australia.
