Rafael Nadal credited his uncle Toni and the rest of his family for teaching him from a young age how to control his emotions on the court and fight for every point after his epic comeback win at Indian Wells on Saturday.
The Spaniard overcame a 5-2 third set deficit to beat young American Sebastian Korda 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (3) and advance to the third round of the tournament.
“The reason why I have been fighting during all my tennis career or I have the right self-control or I have the right attitude and fighting spirit is because I grew up with this kind of education,” Nadal told reporters after the match. “My uncle, my family, never allowed me to break a racket, never allowed me to say bad words or give up on a match... The most important thing was the fact that I grow up with the right values.”
Photo: AFP
The 21-time Grand Slam champion has won all 16 of his matches this year, but said that despite all of his success, he does not possess superhuman confidence.
“If people believe that I am a believer all the time that I am going to come back, not true. I am not like this. I don’t have this amazing self-confidence that even if I am 5-2, okay, I’m going to come back — no,” Nadal said.
“But in my mind is, okay, is almost impossible. I don’t want to give up. I am going to keep trying ... just try to keep going and to put the things a little bit more difficult to the opponent,” he added.
Korda said that he noticed Nadal change his strategy when his back was against the wall trailing 5-2 in the third.
“He started playing a lot different. He moved closer to the baseline,” Korda told reporters. “I could see that he was a little worried, changing up his tactics. I just didn’t play good games, and he took advantage of it.”
While victory was not assured, Nadal said that it would have been if he had simply lied down.
“In that position, in 100 matches, probably you going to lose 90,” he said. “But if you give up, you’re going to lose 100. If you are there, you can win 10 percent.”
WOMEN’S SINGLES
World No. 3 Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday sustained a shock loss in her first match at Indian Wells, falling to Italian Jasmine Paolini 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the second round.
The Belarusian committed eight double faults and converted just three of her nine break point opportunities on a hot day.
Paolini said she was as surprised as anyone to come out on the winning side of the match.
“I’m so happy. I didn’t expect this moment,” she said. “I’m just happy to be here in the third round. I think I played an amazing match. The crowd was amazing. I enjoyed it very much.”
Sabalenka was a favorite to win the event after world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty and world No. 2 Barbora Krejcikova withdrew ahead of the start of the WTA 1000 tournament.
Sabalenka follows Karolina Pliskova and Garbine Muguruza out of the tournament, after both top 10 players lost on Friday.
WOMEN’S DOUBLES
In women’s doubles on Saturday, the Chinese pairing of Xu Yifan and Zhaoxuan Yang defeated duo Magda Linette of Poland and Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan 6-1, 6-3.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS