“The problem in tennis is we have no ruling for that” Rafael Nadal addresses the difficult windy conditions during his semi-final win in 2022 Indian Wells
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Rafael Nadal
World No. 4 Rafael Nadal moves into the finals of the 2022 Indian Wells Masters with the hopes of matching Novak Djokovic‘s record of 37 Masters titles. The Spaniard continues his unbeaten streak of the season as he defeats Carlos Alcaraz 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to reach his 5th finals in the desert.
Nadal is now the second man behind Djokovic to start a season with 20 wins with Novak having achieved the feat twice in his career. Rafa is 20-0 for the season so far having clinched 3 titles already and is 2-sets away from career title number 92 and his 4th of the season, to continue his fantastic comeback season.
Today’s semifinals apart from the battle between Alcaraz and Nadal also will be remembered for the sandstorm during the match that saw the ball kids fighting to keep the bottles and towels in place. While the play was not stopped despite the heavy windy conditions, Nadal remarked that it is one of the things he wishes to see change in the sport.
“The problem in tennis is that we have no ruling for that. There is no rule for wind, but I enjoy playing a lot of times with the wind because for me its a challenge. It’s like playing golf with a lot of wind. I mean you know you’re going to make mistakes the level will not be high all the time but it’s about trying to find solutions all the time.
“The only thing I don’t enjoy is when we have to stop all the time due to rain, the net is moving, the towels are flying so then it becomes unplayable for me. Another tough thing in my opinion today was sand. The sandstorm was not only about the wind, but the eyes were also very difficult because I started to feel sand on my eyes. I really believe that this thing we can fix in our sport by adding in our rulebooks,” said Nadal during his press conference.
Battle against the local boy for Rafael Nadal
Nadal will now be up against Taylor Fritz who reaches his first Masters final after snapping Andrey Rublev‘s winning streak of 13 matches. Fritz won the match 7-5, 6-4 to reach the finals and compete against Nadal who is into his 53rd ATP-1000 finals.
“He is playing great. Super aggressive match against a very difficult player like Rublev who came winning 2 tournaments in a row. I think he played with great determination, very aggressive. I saw a while of the match, he played very well honestly,” said Nadal who also said that he did not remember much of their previous meeting in the 2020 Acapulco Open finals where the Spaniard came out on top.
“Different circumstances, different moments of our careers. When matches happen in a short period of time, maybe you can have a reference on that but when it happens 2 years before, a lot of things changes in our lives, on our careers. Probably both of us are different players so, I don’t think it makes any impact. I am ready to face a very tough opponent, he’s playing with amazing confidence and he’s playing well since the beginning of the season so it’s going to be a tough one,” concluded Rafa.
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Sarthak Shitole
(3462 Articles Published)