Nadal sweats against Feliciano López the number 1,000

• Narration: This is how we live the game

• Ramón Delgado. Nadal's first 'victim': "He was a child, but he already looked different"

It was in Paris, where he has built his legend, but in that small redoubt that still resists him:

achieved his 1,000th ATP triumph by defeating

in the second round of the 1,000th Paris Masters.

He joins

as the only male tennis players to have crossed that barrier in the Open Era.

And not because he was a great friend made him sweat less: 4-6, 7-6 (5) and 6-4 in two and a half hours dunks in the game.

Australian

awaits him in the second round

.

[Narration and statistics]

Nadal had to row and row to erase a single sin: the first game of the match eluded him with a double fault and Feliciano managed to defend him until the tie-break of the second set.

After three weeks standing still, the Spaniard entered cold and the manchego held on to that minimum detail with his service to stretch his chances of victory to the maximum.

Feliciano won 14 of the 15 points he played with first in the first set and in the second he always found a whip at hand to contain Nadal's surge.

Little by little the Mallorcan was putting things in their place.

To miss less from the back of the court, to earn more points with his forehand.

Nadal was raising the temperature, but Feliciano held refuge in his serve.

Had two break balls in the fourth game of the second set;

three in the sixth;

a 0-30 in favor in the eighth ... The Toledo came out of every trouble with a great service.

And so until the seventh point of sudden death, when the Mallorcan finally managed to break his resistance.

Winning inertia

Supported by that winning inertia, Nadal also started with a break in the last set and that distance already sounded decisive: Feliciano López did not have much more left, who in the entire second sleeve had only been able to win four points from the rest.

Just three minutes later, after missing a point sung at the net, he put his hand to his mouth in a gesture of desolation: there was a breaking ball and his best option to re-engage in the game.

Nadal, already plugged in after a cold start, drove into victory number 1,000.

With him will be three Spaniards in the eighth of Paris, as they will also be

, who beat Jan-Lennard Struff (7-6 (3), 6-2) and will face the Slovak Norbert Gombos, and

, who surpassed Benjamin Bonzi (6-4, 6-4) and will play against Little Diego Schwartzman.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• sports

• tennis

• Rafael Nadal

Masters 1,000 ParisFeliciano López, Rafa Nadal's rival in search of his 1,000 victory

TennisNadal will play in Paris-Bercy and will try to match Djokovic's 36 Masters 1000

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