Rafa Nadal achieves his 21st major after a tremendous comeback against Medvedev at the Australian Open

They inscribe tennis and sports, in fact, the date with a gold chisel: January 30, 2022, the day on which Rafael Nadal beat a purebred guerrilla named Daniil Medvedev in 5h 24m and on which the Spaniard ascends to the altar of altars, with the long-awaited 21 already on the record after an extraordinary battle: 2-6, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-4 and 7-5. For the first time, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, his intrepid traveling companions, are left behind. He raises his second trophy in Melbourne, which turned his back on him since 2009 and now marks the rise to the historical top of the racket. It's 1:10 local time, 3:10 p.m. in Spain, and the Russian finally raises the white flag. Nadal throws a ball with his foot, emotionally kneels down and embraces his team.

The scene has something or a lot of romance, given the circumstances of what is happening and the dodge of 21. Federer missed it three years ago, at Wimbledon, and Medvedev himself denied Djokovic at the US Open in September.

It was Nadal's turn, slipstreaming for most of the historic race between the three giants and who landed on December 30 in Melbourne caught with pins, after half a year in the infirmary.

Also on the sofa.

That's where the temptation passed, he said, to surrender to the left foot that hammers him, but in the end he decided to take that plane and this Sunday, the boy who 17 years ago fell like lightning on Roland Garros prevailed in the hostile habitat of the Antipodes to another a decade younger than him.

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It is a praise to the veteran, to the resilience, to resist. And it arrives, how could it be otherwise, wrapped in an episode full of epic. At 35 years old, Nadal overcame the coup designed by Medvedev, 25. Time passes and passes, but the Spaniard continues to battle as if it were the first day.

The proposal of both at takeoff was a declaration of intent.

Weapons in sight, from the beginning.

Nadal subtracting practically from the wall, looking for a high return and trying to scratch the ball based on cut backhands, to see if in one of those he destabilized the Russian and could then angle with the right or the backhand.

His goal is to expand the track as much as possible.

And that, of course, goes through a risk bet.

Immutable, Medvedev countered blow by blow, comfortable from the trench and building the point based on chloroform;

seemingly softly hitting the ball but constantly forcing the opponent to back down, shooting very long.

Machiavellianism in its purest form.

He managed to anesthetize the first section and guide the duel to where he was interested. Everything happened very fast, and at the same time very slow. That's how strange everything is with Medvedev. An enigma that of Moscow. It seems not to feel or suffer, but inside there a volcano crackles. A Leviathan of the competition. Nadal led to a situation of permanent discomfort. The Balearic was dripping with sweat when only two games had elapsed, required at each point to an exhausting precision exercise. Physically, yes; much more mentally. A torture for anyone. The Russian squeezes and squeezes, who in three or four strides has already eaten the track and does not discover a single gap.

There is no fissure at all for Medvedev, who was immediately gaining ground and opening doors.

Nadal steadied his racket, leaned on a couple of defensive volleys and put out the fire with another open one.

However, after dealing with that fire he was unable to put out the next one.

for the adversary, increasingly in control of the pulse and just as categorical to produce another and tie the partial.

It is much more than a pediment.

It's a machine.

His mechanical sneaker spits flames and corrodes like a programmed army of termites.

To each received envite, a superior one for his part.

Endless arms and legs for everything.

He doesn't back down.

A complete player.

While most of his generation mates fall apart at critical moments, he steps forward.

Despite the unevenness, Nadal threw a scramble at him in the second set, but the Russian resisted the onslaught –spanish breaks in the fourth and eighth games– and counterattacked like the chosen ones do –replies to the seventh and ninth–.

When the Mallorcan threatened to get up and turn the duel from the emotional point of view, which could have been a decisive first turning point, he proved to be ready.

He already did it in September in New York, against Djokovic, and underlined his lineage again with a prodigious answer in the

.

After almost an hour and a half of give and take in that second set, he escaped with greatness from the trap.

The tiebreaker began in tow (2-0, 5-3…), but he held his own with temperance and showed guts to abort Nadal's onslaught. He proposed the number five all his arsenal, without skimping, but he weakened with the serve and took one slam after another. Too much this time. To do? Not even a mind as privileged as his was able to withstand the mental wall that Medvedev almost always raises. The Muscovite did not back down, he went to the boarding and dealt a capital blow to the game. Like the big ones. Two sleeves below, the Spaniard consulted the survival booklet, from revision to revision in search of the formula. But not even so. The solution did not arrive, any variant that was worth it.

Get entangled where he got entangled, the Balearic was always with a refusal.

There was no crack.

The short exchanges were for Medvedev and the long ones too.

He squeezed the intermediate rallies, but he was going to the limit.

However, he stirred.

He rebelled.

He grew up.

And he invoked Nadal the great Nadal when he was against the ropes and overcame various abysses;

he canceled three

options at 3-2 and when it looked like he was going to break the rope, he countered.

He clung to the match with suction cups.

Pride

.

He didn't give anything away, he never gave up.

He always believed.

With the red light activated, on that very fine wire that generates so much vertigo, nobody fights like him.

The blow was important, break for 5-4 and set in the pocket.

And then, from slap to slap.

From crochet to crochet.

Slaps on one side and the other.

It is already known: Nadal demands to play several matches within the same match.

There is no puzzle more complicated than locking yourself in a track with him.

It grew bigger, Medvedev shrank.

It happens that the Russian is also a purebred competitor and did not give up.

options were sought from the outset

that the rival avoided and then, after corresponding to Nadal's shove, held up to six attempts by the Mallorcan.

In the end, it succumbed to erosion.

With his energy reserves dwindling considerably, he relented.

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Melbourne upside down. The stands brazenly cheered him on and dirty his serves with whistles or inopportune voices. “With idiots, saying please is not enough. Please is not enough…”, he reproached the chair umpire. And, meanwhile, Nadal at his own, rowing and rowing, much more in tune with the service and throwing hooks to the chin, one after another. His

ruled and the backhand down the line chipped Medvedev's spirits, emotionally very punished and with his quadriceps calling for a truce. But upright.

Subjected both to a frenetic rhythm, from arreón to arreón, in that swampy and radical territory, the one that had the most impact was the Spanish, a specialist in the terminal zone.

None of them spared a single bullet.

Nadal opened the resolution bayonet in hand and then put the shield.

Medvedev insisted and insisted, trying to break the door down, but at his last bite (break to equalize five games) Nadal responded in all his expression, with all his mystique.

Whatever happens and whatever happens, the one from Manacor always returns one more.

So until the 21st, and who knows how far.

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