Rafael Nadal is the undisputed star of the “Abierto Mexicano de Tenis”, which started on Monday in Acapulco at the beautiful complex “Princess Mundo Imperial” The Iberian has won two editions of the tournament: in 2005, one of his very first successes, and in 2013, the last time on clay for the Mexican event, went to hard court from 2014.
Nadal also reached the final in 2017, surprisingly defeated from the power and service of the American Sam Querrey. Last year he was defeated by Nick Kyrgios in a spectacular and amazing match, with the Aussie talent capable of canceling match points and overcome the strong rival, coming to win the title in the final on Sasha Zverev.
Nadal boasts 15 wins and only 2 defeats in Acapulco, reaching the final either winning the tournament in three of his four appearances. In the 2020 edition, Rafa will go hunting for the first title of the year, which would bring him to the 17th year in a row with at least one success on the ATP tour.
Before the start of the tournament, the 19-time Grand Slam champion revealed an interesting story about his 2005 win in Acapulco: “So that year, who knows why we decided to go partying after the final. Next day, we had to take a flight, because I had to go to the Davis Cup to Slovakia.
For some reason, we decided to drive from here to CDMX. There the traffic was horrible and we were very late. We almost lost the flight and when we left the car, we were in a hurry without thinking. So we left the trophy there and never found it”.
Nadal Makes A Statement In Acapulco Opener
Rafael Nadal demonstrated on Tuesday that the most important part of a tennis match is how you finish it. The top-seeded Spaniard swiftly recovered from an early deficit by winning 12 of the last 15 games to defeat fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar 6-3, 6-2 in first-round action at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC in Acapulco.
Nadal remained flawless (4-0) in his ATP Head2Head series with Andujar and improved to 16-2 at this event. The two-time Acapulco champion (2005, 2013) also kept alive the possibility of regaining the top spot in the FedEx ATP Rankings. If Nadal takes the title this week, Novak Djokovic must reach the semi-finals at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships to remain World No. 1 on Monday.
Awaiting the Spaniard in the next round is Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic, who won an all-#NextGenATP battle on Monday against Aussie Alex de Minaur.
Nadal began the match by dropping serve in the opening game and struggled to find the range on his forehand. But even though he was missing shots early on, the top seed still held full control of the tempo in their baseline rallies.
The top seed quickly broke back and went on a five-game run as he pushed Andujar around the court. Andujar bravely saved three set points on his serve at 2-5, but Nadal comfortably held in the next game and took the early advantage.
The second set proved to be one-way traffic for Nadal. He opened proceedings by breaking Andujar with a crushing forehand winner and never lost the lead, eventually closing out play after one hour and 32 minutes. Nadal finished the day with 26 winners to 23 unforced errors.
Seventh seed Grigor Dimitrov wasted no time getting down to business and powered past Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia-Herzegovina 6-3, 6-3 to reach the second round.
“Amazing crowd out here. It’s a very special tournament for me,” Dimitrov said in his on-court interview. “I was glad to get it going again as I haven’t played in a while and am happy to get that first win.”
The Bulgarian won 92 per cent of his first-serve points (24/26) and broke Dzumhur three times to advance in 74 minutes. Dimitrov now looks for his first quarter-final of the season when he meets Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in the next round.
Spanish qualifier Pedro Martinez continued his outstanding form with a convincing 6-3, 6-2 victory over Moldovan Radu Albot. The 22-year-old entered this season having never won a tour-level match, but has prevailed in all five of his opening-round matches this year. Next up for Martinez is a second-round clash with third-seeded Swiss Stan Wawrinka.
Soonwoo Kwon outlasted Japanese lucky loser Taro Daniel 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. The 22-year-old South Korean sits at a career-high ranking of No. 76 after reaching three quarter-finals this month in Pune, New York and Delray Beach. He’ll take on eighth seed Dusan Lajovic in the next round after the Serbian outlasted American Steve Johnson 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3.
