Rafael Nadal on Saturday continued his perfect start to the year, beating Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4 to lift the Mexican Open title in his first tournament since winning the Australian Open.
Nadal needed 1 hour, 54 minutes to beat Britain’s 12th-ranked Norrie for the fourth time in as many career meetings.
“Cameron is a very solid player, he’s a tricky player, he makes you feel that you cannot play comfortable against him at all,” Nadal said.
Photo: AFP
The world No. 5 claimed a 91st career victory, and his fourth in Acapulco after wins in 2005, 2013 and 2020.
Nadal is undefeated since losing to Lloyd Harris in the third round at Washington on Aug. 5 last year. He ended last year’s season soon after due to a left foot injury.
He returned to win the Melbourne Summer Set Australian Open warm-up, then won the Australian Open for a second time to break out of a tie with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic for most men’s Grand Slam singles titles.
His victory over Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open final was a classic, with the Spaniard rallying from two sets down to triumph.
He beat the Russian again in the semi-finals on Friday, just a day after Medvedev was assured of rising to No. 1 in the world thanks to Djokovic’s early exit at Dubai.
In Dubai, an emotional Andrey Rublev said he would sleep for two days after securing his third trophy in seven days by ending the dream run of Czech qualifier Jiri Vesely with a 6-3, 6-4 victory in the final.
The second-seeded Russian won the singles and doubles titles in Marseille on Sunday last week, before clawing his way to a 10th career singles crown, and a fifth at the ATP 500 level.
“For sure for the next two days I will sleep, I won’t leave my bed,” said Rublev, whose plea for peace in Ukraine the previous night went viral across news stations worldwide.
“Finally I can rest for maybe one week now. I feel super happy, even though maybe I’m tired,” he said. “I think I was lucky today that Jiri also was super tired. He had really tough matches since qualies, three sets, he beat top players starting from the first round, so I was super lucky that he couldn’t perform the way he can.”
Rublev entered the Dubai final having contested 17 matches — across singles and doubles — in three weeks, 12 of which were three-setters.
World No. 123 Vesely is the lowest-ranked finalist in the Dubai tournament’s 30-year history.
The 28-year-old left-hander made it through the qualifying rounds before knocking out ex-US Open champion Marin Cilic, eighth seed Roberto Bautista Agut, world No. 1 Djokovic and sixth seed Denis Shapovalov en route to the biggest final of his career.
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