In the third match of his return, Rafa Nadal said enough. Three hours and 25 minutes of a match, of prolonged effort, and the fierce resistance of Jordan Thompson, 43rd in the world, stopped the progress of the tennis player from Manacor, who left the Brisbane tournament, an ATP 250, in the quarterfinals . After 11 months out due to injury (349 days away from the courts), Nadal has passed his first great test: two victories (against Jason Kubler and Dominic Thiem) and a defeat with his head held high (7-5, 6-7 , 3-6), after wasting three match points, but in which he once again showed his best tennis.
It was soon seen at the Pat Rafter Arena in Brisbane that the duel against Thompson, eight years younger and with plenty of legs, would not be like against Kubler (whom he knocked down in two sets, in one hour and 23 minutes). The Aussie from Sydney, whom he had beaten in their two previous duels, showed his serious resistance by breaking his serve in the seventh game (3-4), the first he lost in the tournament.
Nadal, who started strong with his serve (up to 3-2), found more doubts as his serve weakened. But the reaction of the man from Manacor was sensational in the rest: a 40-0 put the Australian’s service in check and he scored the break (4-4) to be able to regain the initiative with the serve. He avoided going to a tie-break by breaking the Australian’s serve for the second time with another devastating return (7-5) in the longest set since his return (1 hour and 11 minutes).
In the second set, Nadal started solidly on serve (1-0 blank) but got stuck on the second serve with a double fault, from which he recovered to avoid the Australian’s break. Clinging to his good rest, he was on the verge of breaking Thompson’s serve in the fourth game, in which he had three break points, but fatigue and lack of precision took their toll (2-2) .
Rafa recovered, holding on to his powerful serve again, with a 4-3 and a blank 5-4 that made the audience at the Pat Rafter Arena in Brisbane rise. He had the game where he wanted it. One more break, and he would be in the semi-finals. The rest worked for him, he won three points in a row and was 40-30, with three match points. But Thompson resisted, forcing errors from the Mallorcan and leading to 5-5 after saving all three balls. Although Nadal was imperial to take the 6-5 with a backhand cross that unnerved the Australian, Thompson, very strong, drew strength from his weakness in his serve to force the tie-break and in sudden death also raise a 3 -0 taking out all of Nadal’s shots on the net fighting like a cat on its belly (6-8). That’s how he took the duel to the third set.
The Balearic tennis player looked very physically affected. After conceding another break, which meant 1-3, and receiving a blank game for 1-4, 3 hours into the match, the two tennis players required assistance from the masseuse. Nadal showed on his face the pain in the psoas of his left leg, for which he had undergone surgery in June and which has kept him out of action until this month of January.
He returned to the court with signs of fatigue and was still able to score two more games, ending up losing 3-6, after almost three and a half hours of the most demanding physical and mental examination on his return to the courts.
