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The Spaniard, who will face Mannarino in the round of 16, considers the match against Khachanov the best since his return.
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At this stage of the tournament, and with Adrian Mannarino as the next opponent, it is lawful to calibrate the projection of Rafael Nadal in this Australian Open where he has appeared with hardly any filming, just out of covid and more than five months without playing an official match. Today I played my best game since I came back, courage after beating in the third round Karen Khachanov by 6-3, 6-2, 4-6 and 6-1. I have improved in all aspects: the position on the court, my legs, the backhand has undoubtedly been the best day. I was hitting without feeling of failure and being able to change directions, added the Spaniard.
After overcoming in the debut to Marcos Giron, 66, already Yannick Hanfmann, 126, Nadal met with a player already experienced on the circuit. Khachanov, 25, has fallen short of what his tennis announced three seasons ago, when he won the Masters 1000 in Paris-Bercy and played in the ATP Finals, but he is still the Olympic runner-up, a top 30 which should not be misled.
It was, thus, a qualitative leap for Nadal, who in the ATP 250 in Melbourne, the only preparation tournament, completed successfully, did not have powerful enemies either. Even without reaching the halfway point of the first major of the season, and waiting for him to maintain the physical response to the ailment in his left foot with which he himself remembered that he will have to live with for the rest of his career, without detracting from Mannarino , who won in four sets to Aslan Karatsev, semifinalist last year, and comes from leaving on his way to Hubert Hurkacz, the highest frontier is embodied Alexander Zverev in a hypothetical quarterfinal match.
favorable balance
Nadal has won in both of his meetings with Mannarino, 69, a veteran and imaginative left-hander who has never gone beyond the last 16 in a major. He is playing very well. His match against Hubert [Hurkacz] It was a surprise. It was immeasurable. Winning him in three sets means he did a lot of things right, said the man from Manacor about his next opponent, on Sunday, probably also on the Australian night, in the morning in Spain.
The last time he had played four sets was against Novak Djokovic, in the semifinals of Roland Garros, then with a victory for the Balkan. The absence of Nole in Melbourne, after the stormy episode due to not being vaccinated against covid, he left a tournament that the Serbian has won nine times without a defined favorite. Nadal only managed to lift the cup in 2009, but was seen in four other finals, two of them lost to Djokovic.
The holder of 20 Grand Slam titles has taken cover from the possible label of favorite, either because of the change of balls in the tournament, which he considers detrimental to his game, or because of the severe problem in the scaphoid, the severity of which he explained after the match against Hanfmann. The truth is that he is the only winner of the tournament that is in the competition and that he is four victories away from getting his head above Roger Federer and Djokovic, along with whom he cohabits in the exciting race to add more Grand Slam titles.
Nadal has been in the quarterfinals in the last two editions, before Dominic Thiem Y Stefanos Tsitsipas, but except in 2008, when he fell in the semifinals against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, whenever he went through that round he was in the final. Mannarino is now waiting, but without losing sight of Zverev, who will have a very careful opponent in Denis Shapovalov.
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