Rafael Nadal is one of the sport’s comeback kings with a proud reputation for digging deep and always finding solutions on a tennis court.
However, on Friday at the Brisbane International, where he was marking his comeback from a career-threatening hip injury, he was given a taste of his own medicine, and to put it bluntly, the Spaniard certainly did not enjoy it.
Nadal’s comeback at this low-key ATP 250 event to kick off the new ATP season had already exceeded expectations with rousing wins over Dominic Thiem and Jason Kubler. He wanted to garnish this fairytale run with a title, but one man did not read the script.
Australia’s Jordan Thompson shocked the Spaniard, beating him at his own game in a gripping contest that lasted three hours and 24 minutes. And it had a tangible effect on Nadal’s surgically repaired hip, with the Spaniard making the chilling claim that he felt some discomfort.
But could Nadal have avoided what looks like an injury scare ahead of his anticipated return to the Australian Open in just under two weeks? Maybe. Nadal had match points – three, to be precise – but could not convert any.
Two of them occurred in successive points in that remarkable second set, where Thompson threw the kitchen sink at him. Luckily for the Aussie, he escaped, clawing his way from a 3-5 deficit in the breaker to win it 8-6 and force a deciding set.
Thomspon eventually prevailed, becoming the first player since 2019 to save match points against Nadal and win the match. Remarkably, the last player to do so was also an Australian. At the Mexican Open five years ago, Kyrgios also saved three match points to defeat Nadal in the second round.
A few days later, the mercurial Kyrgios won the tournament. Defeat to Thompson is the ninth time in Nadal’s career that he has fumbled at match points and lost.
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