The Spanish Rafael Nadal, number 5 in the world tennis ranking, was consecrated champion of the Mexican Open on Saturday after beating the British Cameron Norrie (12th in the ATP) in two sets with double 6-4, in the final played in the Arena GNP Insurance of Acapulco.
Nadal, seeded fourth in the tournament, beat sixth-seeded Norrie in 1 hour 54 minutes 39 seconds. It was the fourth win for the Spaniard against the British in the same number of games.
In the final, Norrie proved to be the most difficult rival that Nadal had throughout the tournament, and for this reason they got involved in a first set in which there were practically no errorsjust a double fault from the Briton who played more aggressive tennis than in previous rounds.
For his part, the Spaniard began bowling short and with the passing of the points he had increasingly powerful and placed services and shots, and also took advantage of the only break opportunity that presented itself in the set to win it in 51 minutes and 17 seconds. .
At the start of the second set, Nadal remained focused and precise on the return and anticipated that he would seek victory in straight sets by breaking his rival’s serve at the first opportunity to take a 1-0 lead.
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Annoyance and frustration were evident in Norrie, who crashed his racket against the track when he saw himself down on the boardbut the British focused and embarrassed the Manacor Fair.
With Nadal serving, Norrie had a triple break point in favor and although he wasted it he had a fourth chance and took advantage of it to recover the break, then he served to go up 2-1.
Although he played him without complexes, Norrie was no longer consistent on his serve and suffered two more breaks with which the Spaniard was on his way to winning the set, the match and the championship.
“It wasn’t my best match of the tournament, but looking on the positive side it was against one of the fittest players on tour. Norrie has an uncomfortable game, he has the virtue of making the rival feel so that he cannot play comfortably, he makes you make difficult decisions and makes you think while playing”, Nadal said at a press conference.
Regarding his performance on the track, the man from Manaco pointed out that “I took good advantage of my opportunities to breakI have raised the net in the important moments, I have also thrown some parallel ‘drives’ I think were good, my service has worked well”.
For his part, Cameron Norrie commented that in this final Rafaek Nadal “played a little better in the biggest moments; I gave him a couple of easy points and he didn’t give me anything, he was too solid for me and just lacked a little focus but all credit to him, it is too good”.
Top winner in Mexico
Rafael Nadal reached 15 consecutive wins at the start of the season and won the Mexican Open for the fourth time in history to tie the tournament’s top winners: Austrian Thomas Muster and Spaniard David Ferrer.
At 35 years old, Nadal won the title in singles number 91 of his career, the third in 2022 after winning the Melbourne tournament and the Australian Open, his 21st Grand Slam.
Earlier in the final of the doubles tournament, the Spanish Feliciano López and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas became champions by beating the Salvadoran Marcelo Arévalo and the Dutchman Jean-Julien Rojer with partial 7-5 and 6-4.
The couple made up of López and Tsitsipas prevailed over the binomial made up of Arévalo and Rojer in one hour with 34 minutes and 15 seconds. (D)
Source: Eluniverso
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