Rafael Nadal was back to his brilliant best as he defeated Alex De Minaur 7-6(6) 6-3 to reach the third round in Madrid.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion was in great form as he produced vintage shot-making to claim a straight sets win over the Australian.
This match was a rematch from their contest in Barcelona which De Minaur won in straight sets.
In that contest, Nadal had ran out of gas but there were no signs of that happening here as he grabbed the early break for 2-0.
After a moment of controversy involving not challenging, Nadal quickly conceded the break and momentum to De Minaur who progressively was more aggressive.
The Australian’s consistent power from the baseline was rewarded as he took a break for 4-3 and what seemed to be control of the match.
However Nadal was not going to bow down easily as he was playing much better than he did in Barcelona, breaking immediately back as the opening set went to a tiebreak.
After gaining a 6-2 lead, Nadal became tight as the finish line neared with De Minaur taking the next four points.
However Nadal held his nerve to send the Caja Magica wild, taking a 76 minute opening set.
It was one way traffic from then on as Nadal was hitting insane backhand cross-court winners and dominating the baseline rallies.
De Minaur’s tactic of drop-shots did not seem to work as the Australian was broken at the start of the second set.
This time Nadal did not surrender so quickly and the Spaniard kept holding serve before breaking again to seal a phenomenal victory.
After the match Nadal admitted that the win means a lot to him, “I’m super happy to be able to be competitive against a great player like Alex, play over two hours,” Nadal told the ATP website.
“It means a lot to me and the atmosphere here is just a joke, so I can’t thank enough everybody here. If I am able to play weeks in a row and if I am able to play tennis, then I’m going to see how far I can go and how competitive I could be. But that’s not the case yet, just step by step and let’s see how I recover.”
Nadal will now aim to reach the last 16 when he faces Argentinian Pedro Cachin, who knocked out Frances Tiafoe in three sets.
