Rafa Nadal Challenges Thompson To Semi Final In Brisbane But Injured
Nadal loses in the quarterfinals after failing to convert three match points.
After a year-long injury hiatus, Rafa Nadal lost to Jordan Thompson in the quarterfinals of his tournament comeback after missing three match points and requiring a medical time-out on Friday.
Before No. 55-ranked Thompson’s comeback victory 5-7, 7-6 (6), 6-3 at the Brisbane International, the 22-time major champion had missed two match points in the tiebreaker and one in the tenth game of the second set.
Tests will be conducted on Nadal’s recovery from the hip injury and surgery that kept him out of action for the majority of 2023, commencing with the Australian Open on January 14.
After being pressed for three hours and twenty-five minutes in his third match in four nights, the 37-year-old Spaniard began the event with two straight-set victories.
When the third set began, his level of energy was clearly declining. Rafa Nadal was evaluated by the trainer in the chair alongside the court, presumably for his upper left leg, following Thompson’s break in the fourth game and subsequent holding for a 4-1 lead.
After taking a medical break, he returned to the court and continued to play for another twenty minutes. In the semifinals, Thompson will play Grigor Dimitrov, the second-seeded player.
First-placed after defeating James Duckworth 6-2, 7-6 (6), Holger Rune advanced to the semifinals, where he faced Roman Safiullin, who defeated Matteo Arnaldi 7-6 (4), 6-2.
Nearly five years after partnering on the same court in a Fed Cup semifinal match against Australia, Aryna Sabalenka and Victoria Azarenka will be on different sides of the net in the women’s semifinals.
With a 6-1, 6-4 victory against fifth-seeded Daria Kasatkina on Friday night, Australian Open winner Sabalenka guaranteed the matchup by extending her winning run in Australia to 14.
Before her Grand Slam debut at Melbourne Park at the beginning of the 2023 season, which also featured a run to the U.S. Open final and the semifinals of the French Open and Wimbledon, she had won a championship in Adelaide the previous year.
Actor Jude Law was among the spectators at the Pat Rafter Arena for Sabalenka’s night match. With her deep, forceful ground strokes, Sabalenka pinned Kasatkina on the baseline. In one and a half hours, she eliminated 32 losers and lost only one game of service.
Both Azarenka and Sabalenka are rated No. 1 and have won the Australian Open. Although they were born nine years apart in Minsk, Belarus, they had only participated in four premier tournaments before. Sabalenka has a 3-1 advantage in their head-to-head matches.
She plays the game so well. Sabalenka remarked of her 34-year-old colleague,
“I was growing up watching her.” “This fight is going to be amazing. That is something I’m extremely excited about.”
Two-time winners Azarenka (2012, 2013) and Brisbane (2009, 2016) overcame a hot-and-bothered former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in the day’s opening match, although it took her two and a half hours to prevail 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.
The second seed for her quarterfinal encounter, Elena Rybakina, only needed to play seven games. Before Anastasia Potapova, ranked eleventh, withdrew from the match due to an abdominal ailment, Rybakina, who won Wimbledon in 2022 and finished second at the Australian Open the previous year, took the opening set 6-1.
Linda Noskova, who defeated 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva 7-5, 6-3, will be her opponent next.
