ATP | Nadal is the giant

There are places where Rafa Nadal feels at home. La Centrale del Foro Italico in Rome is one of those magical squares for the Spanish. He had never lost a semifinal in the transalpine event and this Saturday he did not fail either. So will play for the 12th time in the final of the tournament after fighting to defeat the soaring 23-year-old American, Reilly Opelka, number 47 in the world. Nadal was a giant who intimidated and surpassed with his greatness the server who had accumulated 77 aces and saved the six break points granted in his previous four games. The Balearic took great care of his service, with better percentages than his rival, to win by a double 6-4 in 92 minutes. This Sunday (17:00, #Vamos) he will face Novak Djokovic in the duel for the title, in search of the tenth for his showcases.

Nadal has reached the final of a 1,000 gravel Masters in 16 of the 17 seasons in which he has played at least one. The only exception, last year precisely when only Roma was played and lost to Schwartzman in the quarterfinals. Against Opelka he added a new record to his brilliant record by playing his 500th match on clay, something that only six other tennis players achieved in their day. (Vilas, Orantes, Higueras, Muster, Nastase and Dubbs), but with a significantly lower percentage of victories than that of the 13-time winner of Roland Garros, whose balance is 458-42 for a 91.6% success rate. Among his records on brick dust, in addition to his championships in Paris, he has 61 trophies, 81 wins in a row. that he harvested between 2005 and 2007 and 50 sets that he did not lose between 2018 and 2018.

Nadal's height of Opelka worried little, accustomed to beating this type of player. In fact, his record against giants is now 13-1., with a single loss to John Isner (2.08) in the 2017 Laver Cup, and a 5-0 loss to Ivo Karlovic (2.11). Nor are the Americans bad at the Mallorcan on the ground (18-0). With that background, the task for the player from St. Joseph, Missouri, was by no means easy despite his sudden emergence on the map of ‘ground’ tournaments. Before Rome, his record on Nadal's favorite surface was a poor 2-10 and he had never won two matches in a row. From Italy he leaves with four consecutive wins and his best result in a Masters 1,000.

Little show

The game was not at all showy, it had no rhythm, no long exchanges or spectacular points beyond a precious cut drive by Rafa near the net, and it was only a bit complicated for Nadal when in the first set he had to save four points breakage to put the 2-2 on the scoreboard. Immediately afterwards, it was he who broke the service of an Opelka that played with few firsts (52%). Rafa was brilliant in that facet (75% correct and 84% points won). The proof is that he won five blank games. In the second heat he did not suffer at any time and with a break for 2-1 he calmly put the victory on track, without wearing out the rest, with intelligence.

Results Masters 1.000 Rome.