MADRID, 10 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal will begin his career this Wednesday at the Rome tournament, the fifth Masters 1000 of the season and which is played on clay, an event in which he hopes to increase his sensations and his level of play ahead of Roland Garros.
“My body is like an old car, it needs time to restart,” recalled the Spaniard at the press conference prior to his debut at the Foro Italico, where he will have a difficult debut against American ‘bomber’ John Isner.
The one from Manacor will begin the defense of his 2021 title against the American, the tenth he achieved in the Eternal City, a stage where he hopes to be at a much better level than in the Caja Mágica where he arrived just in preparation after injuring his ribs in the Masters Indian Wells 1,000.
The winner of 21 ‘majors’ was off the courts for more than a month and returned last week at the Mutua Madrid Open, where he was knocked out in the quarterfinals against his compatriot Carlos Alcaraz, the new world tennis sensation and the great absence in the Foro Italico after winning in the Spanish capital.
Nadal had two very demanding matches on the Madrid clay, where his tennis is somewhat penalized by the altitude, since the defeat against the Murcian in three sets was joined by the victory in the previous round also in three sets against the Belgian David Goffin.
This shooting was positive and now he will try to take a leap forward in a tournament where he will once again go to the side of Serbian Novak Djokovic, finalist last year, who is also gaining sensations to defend his crown in Paris and with whom he would see the faces in some hypothetical semifinals.
Thus, if the number four in the world passes Isner’s exam, they could face each other in the round of 16 with the Canadian Denis Shapovalov, while in the quarterfinals rivals of substance appear such as the Norwegian Casper Ruud or Goffin again. On the other hand are two other favorites, the German Alexander Zverev, runner-up in Madrid, and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas.