MADRID, 25 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal has advanced this morning to the semifinals of the Acapulco tournament (Mexico), in the ATP 500 category and played on a hard court, after beating the American Tommy Paul in the quarterfinals (6-0, 7-6 (5)) , and will seek his pass to the final against the next number one in the world, the Russian Daniil Medvedev.
“He’s going to be number one in the world on Monday, and we already saw how hard it was for me to beat him in Australia. I need to be 100% to have options,” explained the Spaniard, who has a favorable balance of 4-1 against the Russian and that, like him, he has won all the sets played this week.
This morning, Nadal put the match on track with a ‘donut’ in a partial that lasted less than half an hour of play. Already in the second, Paul broke his service in his first return game and served to force a third at 5-4. However, the Spaniard, number five in the world, frustrated his attempt.
Thus, he returned the break and missed two chances to close the game before the ‘tie-break’, where he finally guaranteed a pass to the semifinals after two hours and three minutes of play. With this, the one from Manacor reaches a mark of 13-0 this season and 23-2 in the history of the Mexican competition.
“The first set was one of the best I’ve played in a long time. It was fantastic in every way. There’s no such thing as perfection, but I think I was very close to it in that first set because I played so fluid.” Nadal explained.
Now, Daniil Medvedev awaits him, who guaranteed world number one next week after the defeat of Serbian Novak Djokovic in the Dubai quarterfinals. The Russian, of whom he was the executioner in the historic final of the Australian Open last month, also beat Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka (6-2, 6-3) this morning.