Rafael Nadal is unbeaten so far in 2022. The Spaniard has yet to lose a match, and it is not even clay court season yet. Nadal has made an amazing start to the 2022 tennis season. Nadal missed a lot of the previous season due to injury, so has been fighting his way back. Rafael Nadal arrived in Australia in early January to begin his preparations for the first Major of the year. The 35-year-old Spaniard entered the Melbourne Summer Set and was the top seed. Nadal received a bye in the first round, so his first match was against Ricardas Berankis.
After dominating the first set, the Spaniard was pushed hard in the second but still got the win. With a walkover in the quarterfinal, then a straight sets win over Emil Ruusuvuori, Nadal set up a match with Maxime Cressey in the final. A very tough fought tiebreak first set went the way of the Spaniard, who then imposed himself on the American and took the title in straight sets 7-6(8), 6-4. With the saga surrounding Novak Djokovic being denied entry to the country overshadowing the start of the tournament, Nadal, the sixth seed at the Australian Open, quickly got to work.
Easing through the first two rounds, Nadal progressed in straight sets. 28th seed Karen Khachanov managed to take a set of Nadal, before the Spaniard totally dominated the fourth set. A very tight tiebreak in the fourth round match against Adrian Mannarino, saw Nadal edge ahead. The rest of that match was very one sided as the Spaniard eased through into the quarter final.
Canadian Denis Shapovalov took the 35-year-old to five sets, as they exchanged the first four between them. Experience showed though, as Nadal broke to take the fifth and move closer to holding the record for the number of Grand Slam titles alone. Matteo Berrettini sneaked the third set off Nadal in the semifinal, but the Spaniard soon regrouped and took the fourth. The final was against second seed Daniil Medvedev. The Russian actually took the first two sets from Nadal. However, the Spaniard fought back and took the next three. This gave Nadal 21 Grand Slams, more than Roger Federer and Djokovic each hold.
From Australia, Nadal hopped over to Mexico. To say that the Spaniard has been unstoppable so far at the ATP Acapulco Open would be an understatement. Stefan Kozlov only managed to win three games, and they were all in the second set. Tommy Paul despite a commendable effort was unable to win a game in the first set. The American did get a handle on things in the second and managed to take Nadal to a tiebreak, which the fourth seed edged to move into the semifinal. The semifinal was a repeat of the Australian Open final, only this time the 35 year old only needed straight sets to take out the Russian. Medvedev took six games in total, three in each set.
This set up a final with the new British #1 Cameron Norrie. Although Norrie is excellent form himself, having won a Masters event last season, and the title in Delray Beach last week. The Briton has played Nadal three times so far, and the Spaniard has won them all. Nadal is unlikely to loose the to Brit, and we are still only in February and well away from the clay courts. Nadal will remain unbeaten this season, although Norrie will hopefully at least give the Spaniard a match. Nadal is making up for lost time, as at the age of 35 it is uncertain how long he has left on the main circuit. But there is no telling how much more he might achieve.
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