Rafa Nadal, a comeback with a possible prize in Cincinnati

• Masters 1,000 Carlos Alcaraz liquidates McDonald in his debut in Cincinnati

It will be in Cincinnati, once the planned return to Canada has been postponed.

This time

is back , competing again after fully overcoming the abdominal injury that prevented him from playing in the semifinals at Wimbledon.

The plan does not vary too much from its forecasts.

The idea was to play a tournament before the start of the US Open, on the 29th. Winner in Ohio in 2013, the Spaniard has not played this tournament for four years.

On the afternoon of July 7, on the eve of the match that he had to face

in the penultimate round of Wimbledon, Nadal called a press conference to announce that he was not in a position to face it.

The day before he had pulled off the match against

despite suffering a tear at the start, but playing again with the injury greatly weakened his options, as well as compromising the rest of the season.

In a year again conditioned by injuries, the Spaniard presents an excellent account of results.

He has won as many titles as anyone, after winning the Australian Open, Roland Garros, the ATP 500 in Acapulco and the ATP 250 in Melbourne, and is undefeated in the

.

success and suffering

To write about Nadal in recent times, it would seem that almost throughout his entire career, is to do it through a simultaneous account of his successes and his sufferings, even more so since the damage caused by the chronic injury to his left foot reappeared. that he managed to suffocate after playing infiltrated during the two weeks of Roland Garros.

Leaving aside the successful shooting in the previous tournament, the 2022 sequence begins with the impressive triumph at the Australian Open after lifting a very adverse final against

, to conquer his twenty-first major and remain alone on the heights in the fight he has with

and

, the latter, away from the fields for more than a year, almost unhorsed from the race

He has won 35 games, with only three defeats: against Fritz, in the Indian Wells final, who played with a stress crack in the third arch of his left rib produced against

, in the semifinals of that same tournament;

against Alcaraz, in the quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open, a tournament where he reappeared after spending five weeks on the shoulder as a result of the damage that occurred in the Californian desert;

and against

, in the round of 16 in Rome, weakened by Müller-Weiss syndrome, that degenerative disease in the scaphoid of the left foot.

Already 36 years old and close to his first fatherhood, Nadal continues to struggle with the enthusiasm of his adolescence, still with serious commitments to fulfill.

The most important, it is known, is now one-on-one with Djokovic to finish with the most Grand Slam titles, a dispute in which he has a title advantage after the Serbian narrowed the gap by winning for the sixth time in Wimbledon.

Other challenges come his way almost unintentionally, as a consequence of his magnificent results and the weaknesses of his opponents.

The man from Manacor has before him in Cincinnati the possibility of once again climbing to number 1 in the world and becoming the second oldest player to wear the best bib number after Federer did so at the age of 36 years and 320 days on July 24, 2018. achieve it,

First summit, 14 years ago

Nadal, who reached the summit for the first time on August 18, 2008, has been number 1 for 209 weeks, the last 13 between November 4, 2019 and February 3, 2020. As Medvedev himself acknowledged before the start of the North American fast court tour, the logical thing is that Nadal comes out of it on top.

Not in vain, in addition to the threat that he will have to face in Cincinnati, in the US Open the Russian will defend 2,000 points as current champion, while his closest pursuer starts from zero, given that a year ago he was injured and did not play any tournament in the second part of the season.

Medvedev has 6,885 points;

Zverev, second and still without a date for his reappearance after tearing the ligaments in his right ankle in the Roland Garros semifinals, against Nadal, 6,760;

and the Spanish, third, 5,620.

Nadal will debut this Wednesday against

and could meet

in the quarterfinals and Alcaraz in the semifinals.

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• Rafael Nadal

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