“Nadal lost four kilos after his match against Shapovalov”

Former world number one Carlos Moyà, current coach of Rafael Nadal, stated that his pupil committed the highest number of double faults of his career during his quarter-final match against Canadian Denis Shapovalov (14) and that, however, the service gave him the match

“That’s called evolution. It was the day he did the most doubles of his career but he won the match thanks to the serve”, explained the former tennis player and current coach during an interview granted to Cadena COPE.

Moyà, who stayed in 1997 at the gates of the title in Melbourne when he stumbled against the American Pete Sampras, detailed the heat stroke suffered by his pupil and how he was able to reverse a very adverse situation against a Shapovalov which went from less to more.

“He lost four kilos after the game, the dehydration was great. He usually suffers in those conditions. He had done all the things well, so we did not expect it to happen after an hour and a half of the game. It was winning an entire set against a player who was being better than him. In the end Shapovalov’s bad game and Rafa’s mental strength came together,” he argued.

“He recovers quickly from heat stroke. I haven’t been with him this morning but I imagine he will have had better days. The key is that he will have an extra day that will come in handy because he will play on Friday,” he added.

Moyà also revealed that “Not even in the most optimistic scenario” would they think that the winner of 20 majors would reach the semifinals.

“Nadal always comes back and is always going to give war. You have the letter that it is Rafa”, he added about a Nadal who will face Italian Matteo Berrettini (7) in the semifinals.

The coach, who was the winner of Roland Garros in the 1998 edition against his compatriot Alex Corretja, criticized the harshness of an excessively long tennis calendar and described it as “wild”.

“Those who play the Davis Cup final finish on December 8 or 9 and are here from January 1 or 2. The calendar is very wild, it is one of the things that should change. This is what made Rafa come unprepared on some occasions and have problems with his foot or knee. This time we had time to prepare it,” he explained after they traveled to Australia after six months of inactivity as a result of problems with his right foot.

The Mallorcan also clarified that the team prefers not to talk about the possibility that Nadal could become the most successful tennis player in history with 21 majors. although he admitted that they dream of it.

“Obviously you dream but you don’t talk about it. 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 ignore it. It will be discussed if it is achieved from Sunday,” he said.

Finally, the coach of the sixth seed said that life in Melbourne is completely normal with regard to restrictions and indicated that a country that has had the same number of total deaths as those recorded in Spain in two days must be respected.

“In two days they died in Spain more than here during the entire pandemic. We must respect, we must leave this to the experts, as Rafa says, but it is true that they have opened their hand in terms of restrictions and it is not as strict as last year,” he concluded.