Patrick Mouratoglou in a video on Instagram carefully analyzed the performance of the Spaniard Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open 2022 and he explained what he thinks made the difference between him and Daniil Medvedev. Mouratoglou said: « I think everyone has seen him lose this match.
He was dominated, extremely nervous, he was far more wrong than usual. I think everyone will agree that the number one quality of him is resilience and a love of fighting. He loves fighting, he loves when it’s tough, where most players don’t like those moments, he loves them.
That’s where he feels alive and himself. And this made his career. » Mouratoglou then abandoned the psychological-human aspect to concentrate on the technical one, illustrating what in his opinion was the keystone of the match: « He started using many slices to bring Medvedev to the net, where he won points important.
Mouratoglou: « Rafael Nadal’s best quality is resilience »
The fact that he has won points in situations in which Medvedev should have won made him very doubtful. This was the turning point, the key. Bringing Medvedev into a situation where he was uncomfortable, making him miss easy shots.
What surprised me a lot in that final was Rafa’s physical form. What we saw during the tournament was probably the worst physical form he has shown in the last 20 years. He looked really tired and that’s why I thought that physicality would play an important role in the match, that Rafa would have to win the first sets otherwise he would have reached the fifth: in reality, exactly the opposite happened.
I feel like Rafa knew before the game. If he had known he was physically short, he would have been a lot more aggressive, but he wasn’t at all, accepting exchanges. In the end Daniil was tired, Rafa was not. »
Rafael Nadal with the victory of the Australian Open 2022 has updated the count of the Slams won bringing it to twenty-one and overcoming his eternal rivals Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
The Mallorcan, visibly tired, nervous and consequently foul on the court, turned the game against Daniil Medvedev in his favor when everyone gave him up for dead, especially when the Russian reached the score by two sets to zero.
The hard moments, however, have always been Nadal’s bread and butter, whose fighting spirit has represented the founding element of a career that still continues as if time never passed.
