Nadal celebrates his progression on all fronts

• Chronicle Nadal stops Kachanov's response

• Alcaraz Eliminated in the third round after a tough battle with Berrettini

At this stage of the tournament, and with

as the next rival, it is lawful to calibrate the projection of

in this Australian Open where he has appeared with hardly any filming, just out of covid and more than five months without playing a match official. “Today I played my best game since I came back”, he valued after beating

in the third round 6-3, 6-2, 4-6 and 6-1. "I have improved in all aspects: the position on the court, my legs, the backhand without a doubt has been the best day. I was hitting without feeling of failure and being able to change directions," added the Spaniard.

After beating

, 66th, and

, 126th, in his debut, Nadal met a player already seasoned on the circuit. Khachanov, 25, has fallen short of what his tennis announced three seasons ago, when he won the Masters 1000 in Paris-Bercy and played in the ATP Finals, but he is still the Olympic runner-up, a

against the that you shouldn't get distracted.

It was, thus, a qualitative leap for Nadal, who in the ATP 250 in Melbourne, the only preparation tournament, successfully completed, did not have powerful enemies.

Even without reaching the halfway point of the first major of the season, and waiting for him to maintain the physical response to the ailment in his left foot with which he himself remembered that he will have to live with for the rest of his career, without detracting from Mannarino , who won in four sets against

, a semifinalist last year, and has just left

in his way , the highest frontier is embodied by

in a hypothetical quarter-final match.

favorable balance

Nadal has won in both of his meetings with Mannarino, 69th, a veteran and imaginative left-hander who has never gone beyond the round of 16 in a major.

“He is playing very well.

His match against Hubert [Hurkacz] was a surprise.

It was immeasurable.

Winning him in three sets means that he did a lot of things well », said the man from Manacor about his next opponent, on Sunday, probably also on the Australian night, in the morning in Spain.

The last time he had played four sets was against

, in the Roland Garros semifinals, then with the Balkan triumph. The absence of

in Melbourne, after the stormy episode as a result of not being vaccinated against covid, left a tournament that the Serbian has won nine times without a definite favorite. Nadal only managed to lift the cup in 2009, but he was seen in four other finals, two of them lost to Djokovic.

The holder of 20 Grand Slam titles has taken cover from the possible label of favorite, either due to the change of balls in the tournament, which he considers detrimental to his game, or due to the severe problem in the scaphoid, the severity of which he expanded after the match against Hanfmann. The truth is that he is the only tournament winner who is in the competition and that he is four wins away from getting his head above

and Djokovic, along with whom he cohabits in the exciting race to add more Grand Slam titles.

Nadal stranded in the quarterfinals in the last two editions, against

and

, but he saved in 2008, when he fell in the semifinals against

, whenever he went through that round he was in the final.

For now, Mannarino, but without losing sight of Zverev, who will have a serious opponent in

.

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