A ruthless Rafael Nadal crushed his great rival Roger Federer 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 6-3 yesterday in an awesome display of raw power and precision to reach his third Australian Open final.
On a breezy night at the Rod Laver Arena, the 2009 champion notched his sixth straight win in Grand Slams over the Swiss, stunning his opponent with a master class of clean hitting to book a title-decider with Stanislas Wawrinka.
Dominating Federer in the first-set tiebreak, the Spaniard broke twice to charge through the second and captured the decisive break in the third at 3-3 when his opponent blasted into the net cord and the deflection sailed long.
Hitting winners from all corners, Nadal raised two match points as Federer served to stay in the match and sealed it on the second, when the shell-shocked Swiss shanked a forehand long.
Nadal punched his left fist into the night sky and roared in triumph, while a demoralized Federer gave a cursory wave before trudging to the exit.
“I think tonight I played my best match of the tournament, so I’m very happy for that,” top seed Nadal, who missed last year’s tournament through illness, said in a courtside interview.
“After missing last year, for me it’s really emotional to be back on this court, in Rod Laver,” he said.
“I never thought about having 14 [Slams], the only thing I can swear is that I’m going to try my best,” the 13-time Grand Slam champion said of his prospects for the final.
The lopsided result will refuel the debate as to the greatest player of all time, with Nadal extending his head-to-head dominance over Federer to 23-10, and thrashing him on a hard court, the most democratic of surfaces.
A runaway victory seemed an absurd notion early, as the pair parried and probed in the opening games.
Nadal was impenetrable on serve and demanded Federer meet him in a tiebreak, where the Swiss promptly stumbled.
Throwing his opponent from side to side, the Spaniard played it completely on his terms, roaring to a 5-1 lead and closing the set out when Federer sent an increasingly shaky backhand sailing past the baseline.
Frustrated by Nadal’s stifling consistency, Federer was further agitated after the Spaniard left the court between sets and then had treatment on his blistered hand at the first change of ends.
Federer was forced to defend three break points at 2-1 and survived only by a centimeter shown up on the “Hawk-eye” technology after a challenge on a line call.
An outrageous cross-court passing shot steered from a seemingly impossible angle gave Nadal another look at Federer’s serve at 3-2, and he smacked an inside-out forehand to leave Federer flat-footed, broken and in deep trouble.
Serving for the set, Nadal wobbled to 0-30, but closed it out with four straight points.
An unkind net cord put Federer on the rack at 15-40 again on serve, and he was unable to breach it with another backhand to slump to an early break in the third game.
Against all logic and reason, Nadal shanked a forehand to give up two break points and then fired another just past the baseline to allow Federer to break back.
Having been marginally off all night, Federer flirted with the net cord again and was broken to 4-3.
Smelling blood, Nadal pounced as the teetering Swiss served to stay in the match, closing out the contest with a dizzying array of winners.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals at the All England Open, beating Kim Ga-eun of South Korea 21-17, 21-15. With the win, Tai earned a semi-final against China’s He Bingjiao, who beat Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-9. Defending champion An Se-young defeated India’s P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-11. An on Wednesday cruised into the second round, unlike last year’s men’s winner, Li Shifeng, who suffered a shock defeat. South Korea’s An, the world No. 1, overcame Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi 21-17, 21-16 to set up the match against Sindhu. In other women’s singles matches, Taiwan’s Sung Shuo-yun lost 21-18, 24-22 against Carolina Marin of
EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
DOUBLES PAYBACK: Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Martens avenged their defeat in the quarters at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open against Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium dispatched Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani 6-1, 6-4 to set up a clash against Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez for a spot in the final of the WTA 1000 tournament. Hsieh and Martens made a blistering start to their rematch after they lost to Schuurs and Stefani in the quarter-finals at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open last month, winning three games without reply at the start of the first set