Precocious, forceful, indefatigable: Nadal's 1,000 victories draw his best features

The vertigo of his first matches at the recent Roland Garros invited us to dive into the arcane of

most convincing victories

.

Until now, no one has suffered as resounding damage as

, defeated in the third round of the tournament in 2017 6-0, 6-1 and 6-0.

The Georgian met the southpaw again two years later, in the round of 16 in Rome, again with only one game as consolation: 6-1 and 6-0.

Read chronologically in reverse, we soon meet the ino

lvidable 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 of the last final against

, which was the 999 victory, prior to the one achieved in Paris-Bercy against Feliciano López.

Only in the 2019 Rome final, a match that, according to his own confession, Nadal took as a previous reference, had he endorsed a

to Serbian.

That time he won 6-0, 4-6 and 6-1, almost at the beginning of the long list, which has allowed him to join the select club that they make up.

(1,274 wins),

(1,242) e

(1068), illustrious victims appear, not, in this case, by the severity of the digits, but by the surprising nature of the triumph.

"I had already heard well of him, although we had never trained together, so I approached the game with respect. Then I went 2-0 and 15-40, right after I started, and I thought it wouldn't be so bad," he recalls

in telephone conversation with this newspaper.

The man from Lleida, who had won Roland Garros the previous year and had just made the semifinals at the Masters 1000 in Miami, bowed to Nadal 7-5, 6-3 in the second round of Monte Carlo 2003. "Then he didn't have such a good setback. and his second serve was attainable, so the idea was to press him on the backhand, look for short balls and go up to the net ", explains the current director of the Davis Cup Finals.

In what can be considered his first season on the circuit, since in 2002 he only played the Palma tournament, where he opened against

the list of triumphs, Nadal emitted the symptoms of tennis players with a lot of flight.

All inside

"He defended very well, he shot

passings

and put them all inside.

As the game progressed, he became more and more aggressive.

He was not afraid of anyone, "recalls Costa, who later directed him in the successful Spanish Davis Cup team. Weeks later, in Hamburg, he would surprise

Carlos Moyà

, 7-5 and 6-4.

His current coach, together with whom he grew up tennis in Palma, had won Roland Garros four years earlier to become the first number 1 in Spanish tennis in the spring of 1999.

But Nadal also had the opportunity to play with another of the great names in our tennis: between Costa and Moyà he ran into Corretja. "When we played in Barcelona, ​​I was already alerted after seeing the victory he had achieved against Albert Costa in Monte Carlo. It was there that I saw him for the first time. When we played I already knew that he had a high rhythm, that he moved well and had a great mentality, "Alex Corretja recalls for EL MUNDO, who can boast of a favorable 2-0 in the face to face with Nadal.

Corretja, who was number two in the world and a double finalist at Roland Garros, won 3-6, 6-2 and 6-1 in the first round of Godó.

At the end of the game, on the net, Nadal, who already knew himself capable of much after the striking victory against Albert Costa, gave him his hand reluctantly. "He already had a winning character. Carlos Costa [his manager] spoke to him: 'You have played with a consecrated tennis player who you should treat differently. "He immediately came to the corner where I was in the locker room and congratulated me:" Congratulations, you deserved to win. "It was a sign of the good education he has had from very early on. young. "The two victories that kept Nadal on the court the longest lasted the same length: five hours and 14 minutes.

It was the time it took to prevail over

Guillermo Coria

in the final of the Masters 1000 in Rome 2005: 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6 and 7-6 (6) and also the one he needed to overcome

Fernando Verdasco

in the semifinals of the 2009 Australian Open: 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (2), 6-7 and 6-1.

Verdasco endures one of the most cruel balances in direct confrontations: 17-3.

David ferrer

left tennis with an unfavorable 26-6.

Stan wawrinka

He has only won three of his 22 games.

Federer is 24-16 down.

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