New York (AFP)
World number three Rafael Nadal overturned a set down to beat Australian wildcard Rinke Hijikata 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 to advance to the second round of the US Open, the last Grand Slam of tennis.
The 36-year-old Spanish veteran felt a lot of fear before beating the 198th ranked world number, achieving his 65th victory in his career in New York.
Nadal, seeking to achieve his 23rd grand slam title, and the third this year after Australia and Roland Garros, hit a date in the second round with Italian Fabio Fognini.
The numbers tend to favor Nadal in his confrontations with Fognini, where he beat him 13 times to 4 defeats, but the Italian beat in the most famous matches that brought them together when he overturned his two sets, to win in the third round of the Flushing Meadows Championship in 2015.
“I’m very happy to be back, I’ve played here for a long time, I thought maybe I’d never come back,” said Nadal, who won the title at his last game in New York in 2019.
The “Matador” is participating in the Flushing Meadows competitions this year under the threat of injuries, after an abdominal muscle injury forced him to withdraw from the Wimbledon semi-final against the Australian “troublemaker” Kyrgios.
Nadal only played an orphan match before facing Hijikata, which ended in his loss to Croatian Borna Coric in the Cincinnati 1,000-point Masters Tournament.
Hijikata, participating in the first major championship of his career, broke the Spaniard to advance 4-3, then won the first set in the 10th game.
Quickly, Nadal returned to the atmosphere of the meeting, to win the second set, and equalized 1-1, before breaking his opponent’s serve in the third set to advance 3-1 to continue in the same vein and settle it in his favour, to return and win the third set and the match.