By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, January 28, 2022
Rafael Nadal fought off Matteo Berrettini into his sixth Australian Open final and now stands one win from a men's record 21st Grand Slam crown.
Photo credit: Getty
A relentless Rafael Nadal delivered passionate ferocity to move to the brink of Grand Slam majesty.
Lasering his lefty forehand into a dubious Matteo Berrettini backhand, Nadal battled into his sixth Australian Open final with a 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 semifinal conquest today.
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The 35-year-old Spaniard withstood a spirited mid-match rally from Berrettini, who powered through five consecutive love holds in the third and fourth sets, and muted the uprising surging into his 29th career Grand Slam final.
The sixth-seeded Nadal is the fourth oldest man in the Open Era to reach a Grand Slam final after Ken Rosewall, rival Roger Federer and Mal Anderson. This inspired adventure comes 13 years after Nadal fought off Fernando Verdasco and Federer in back-to-back epics to capture his lone AO championship in 2009.
The king of clay now stands three sets away from ruling as major monarch.
Nadal can clinch a men’s record 21st Grand Slam title beating either US Open champion Daniil Medvedev or Roland Garros runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas in Sunday’s final. If he attains the major dream, Nadal will join rival Novak Djokovic, whose visa was cancelled by Australia denying his title defense, as only the second man in Open Era history to win all four Grand Slam crowns twice.
“For me it’s all about the Australian Open more than anything else,” Nadal told Jim Courier when asked about his quest for history. “It’s just an amazing event that as I said a couple of days ago I have been a little bit unlucky in my career with some injuries and other times I played amazing finals with good chances against Novak 2012 and against Roger in 2017.
“I feel very lucky that I won once in my career 2009 but I never thought about another chance in 2022 so just try to enjoy the victory of today and then after tomorrow I will try my best.”
This semifinal was a strong scenario for Nadal, who said he felt “completely destroyed” after scoring a sweaty four hour, eight-minute triumph over Denis Shapovalov in the quarterfinals. Exuding energy from the start, Nadal fired his forehand with ferocity, served with authority and was striking the ball with whiplash conviction for much of the two hour, 55-minute triumph. Given Nadal is a decade older than Medvedev and 12 years older than Tsitsipas the fact that he was able to conserve energy in his lacks while grooving his game against a big hitter should serve him well in his historic leap on Sunday.
“I think I start the match playing great,” Nadal said. “First two sets have one of the best sets for a long time. Then I know how good is Matteo: he’s a very solid player very dangerous.”
After going five sets with Shapovalov, Nadal was in no mood for a marathon tonight and went into warrior mode to close out a dramatic win to raise his AO record to 75-15.
“In the third [set] I know at some point he’s gonna for the shots then I think I didn’t play a good game with my serve in the 4-3 game, but he played some great shots a passing shot down the line unbelievable,” Nadal said. “Then we need to suffer, we need to fight the fourth again that’s the only way to be where I am today. Honestly it means a lot to be back in the final here.”
Rain pelted the closed roof over Rod Laver Arena as Nadal brought force of nature intensity and a torrent of torment to Berrettini storming out to a 3-0 lead.
One challenge for the Wimbledon runner-up was he looked jittery and sluggish sending some major misfires early. Berrettini’s bigger obstacle: his sometime shaky backhand was no solution for Nadal’s twisting topspin forehand.
The Spanish left-hander targeted the Italian’s weaker forehand wing like a boxer battering away to widen a welt above his opponent’s eye—Berrettini saw the blows coming, couldn’t stop the onslaught and things got painful quickly.
Dancing around his backhand, Nadal laced a diagonal forehand extending to 5-2 after 32 minutes. Berrettini called for the trainer on the ensuing changeover.
Serving for the set, Nadal saw the Italian catch fire on the forehand fighting off three set points. Berrettini bombed a forehand down the line to draw even at deuce on the Spaniard’s serve for the first time since the opening game. On his fourth set point, Nadal slid his fail-safe wide serve into the Berrettini backhand to close the 42-minute opener.
Shifting his return position closer to the baseline on second serves, Nadal won seven of eight points played on the Berrettini second serve in the first set.
The man in the plum-colored shirt sent a series of bruising shots before whipping a winner breaking Berrettini at 15 to start the second set.
The forehand is the biggest weapon for both men. Through the first two sets, Nadal’s forehand was bigger, heavier and more malleable.
Facing a fourth break point, Berrettini botched a tomahawk forehand surrendering the third break of the night as Nadal took a 3-0 lead for the second straight set.
Turning a major semifinal into a tennis tutorial, Nadal bamboozled Berrettini with a sick slice backhand slathered with sidespin that elicited a shanked backhand reply from Berrettini for 4-0. Nadal banged a body serve snatching a two-set lead after 85 minutes. For the second set in a row, the big-serving Berrettini won just one point on second serve.
An imperious Nadal was 232-2 after winning two the first two sets in Grand Slams, but Berrettini was just getting warmed up.
"As everybody knows I am more an outdoor than indoor player but yeah the stadium looks amazing like this closed with the amazing crowd is even more noisy so I enjoy a lot the atmosphere so I can’t complain at all," Nadal said about indoor conditions. "I knew before the match that the roof is gonna be closed. One month and a half I didn’t know if I was gonna play tennis so it doesn’t matter if it’s outdoors or indoors I just wanted to enjoy and do my best."
The seventh-seeded Italian was swinging more freely showing his explosive grip-and-rip baseline aggression in the third set. Berrettini wrapped a beautiful running forehand around the net post into the corner—creative brilliance that helped him hold for 4-3.
A pumped up Berrettini hit a sensational forehand strike down the line pressuring Nadal to triple break point in the eighth game. Amping up the intensity of his grunt, the 6’5” Italian obliterated a forehand winner down the line celebrating his first ever break of the Nadal serve for 5-3.
Berrettini made the lone break of the set stand serving out the third set at love and feeling the love from roaring Melbourne fans hungry for more.
Credit the imposing Italian for throwing down five straight love holds, slashing his 13th ace out wide to level the fourth set 3-all.
Fighting back from 15-30 down in the seventh game, Nadal dotted the center stripe with an ace and used the serve and volley to hold for 4-3.
That challenging sparked Nadal to a break in the eighth game.
When Berrettini’s final shot expired in net, Nadal stood motionless for a moment as if absorbing the moment then threw three rapid fire fist pumps toward his box wearing the wide smile of a man one win from major majesty.