“ATP giving him one last shot at winning the finals” Fans in fury after Rafael Nadal handed an easy draw as compared to Novak Djokovic’s vigorous group
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Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic - FirstSportz
Spanish legend Rafael Nadal will be the top-seed player at the Year-end Championship since Carlos Alcaraz announced his withdrawal owing to his abdominal injury. He will be looking to end the year on a pleasant note after bowing out of the 2022 Paris Masters in the second round. He arrived early in Turin to get some much-needed practice ahead of the start of the tournament.
The former World No 1 has had a fantastic year as he won two titles in the Grand Slams and remained undefeated in the major tournaments until his loss at the US Open. Despite being in excellent form, he couldn’t perform well at the 2022 Paris Masters and got eliminated in the second round itself, for which he was heavily bashed. He had blamed himself for the loss while assuring everyone to perform at his best in Turin.
Just a few days ahead of the start of the tournament, the final group list was out with Nadal leading the Green Group and Stefanos Tsitsipas leading the Red Group. But what caught everyone’s attention was the fact that the Spaniard was placed in the draw with Casper Ruud, Felix Auger Aliassime, and Taylor Fritz. Whereas Novak Djokovic was allocated to the Red Group with Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev, and Andrey Rublev.
As soon as the final draw was made public, several tennis fans rushed to social media to provide their take on the selection, with the majority of fans expressing their disappointment with the selection. They expressed their anger for showing favor to the Spaniard over other players. The other fact that was considered is while the 22-time Grand Slam winner is yet to win a title at the championship, the 20-time Grand Slam champion will be looking to win his sixth title in Turin.
Twitter reacts after Rafael Nadal gets lucky in getting an easy draw at the Nitto ATP Finals
As expected, people on social media slammed the ATP Finals for making a biased selection where one is given special treatment over others like the Serbian legend. Judging by the comments, while the majority of users brutally mocked the 2022 Australian Open champion for getting lucky in the competition, others pointed out the fact that Rafael Nadal has requested to get players trained in his academy to be put in a single group.
Sharing a wide spectrum of reactions online, here’s what fans had to say:
Though Djokovic had a tough year and missed tournaments over his unvaccinated status, he has left behind remarkable performances whenever he is back on the court. After the North American swing, he has appeared in three back-to-back finals and has won two out of them, whereas Nadal is yet to register a good win. With that being said, it will be interesting to see if the Mallorcan will win his maiden title in Turin despite getting an easy drawl or if his quest will remain unfulfilled.
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