R. Nadal, who won the 3-hour thriller and fulfilled his opponent’s request: “3 weeks ago, I lost in front of all the kids at my academy”

The Spaniard scored a dramatic victory on Monday at the ATP 1000 Mutua Madrid Open men’s tennis tournament in Madrid, Spain Rafael Nadal (ATP-512), which after more than 3 hours of fighting 6:1, 6:7 (5:7), 6:3 beat the argentinian Pedro Cachina (ATP-91). These tennis players played against each other for the first time.

R. Nadal completely dominated the first set, but had to chase his opponent in the second (0:2). Later, the Spaniard lost another series of his serves and was even 1-4 behind. However, R. Nadal did not give up, won two sets of his opponent’s serves, withstood two “set points” and equalized the result (5:5). In the eleventh game, the Spaniard again played poorly during his service (5:6) and it seemed that the hard work would go in vain, but in the twelfth game R. Nadal realized a “break point” and snatched the overtime. In it, the Spaniard also straightened up after a bad start (0:3, 1:4, 4:4, 5:5). After the winning point, Mr. Cachinas created another “set point” (5:6) during his serving and this time he did not make a mistake.

At the beginning of the third set, R. Nadal broke away 2-0. Mr. Cachinas quickly restored the balance (2:2). There were concerns that the Spaniard would not be able to withstand such a heavy physical load, but the veteran proved at the end of the set that his physical form is now very good. R. Nadal won two more sets of his opponent’s serves, and P. Cachinas did not create any more break points.

After the match, the Argentine asked for R. Nadal’s shirt and the Spaniard fulfilled his opponent’s request.

“I feel good at the moment, but we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. So far, it doesn’t seem like such a long match has hurt me in any way.

3 weeks ago I lost against all the kids at my academy, and now I’m fighting against ATP tour players and even defeating them”, said R. Nadal.

The veteran was happy that his next match was with a Czech Jiri Lehečka (ATP-31) was moved to late Tuesday night, giving R. Nadal more time to recover.

In other matches, the representative of Kazakhstan Alexander Bublik (ATP-18) 3:6, 7:6 (7:2), 6:4 beat the American Ben Shelton (ATP-15), Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (ATP-35) 6:1, 1:0 defeated the 18-year-old Czech who did not finish the match Jakub Menšik (ATP-74), and Norwegian Casper Ruud (ATP-6) 6:2, 6:4 surpassed the British Cameron Norrie (ATP-30).

The prize pool of the ATP 1000 series men’s tennis tournament in Madrid is just over 7.877 million. euros.