Ten days after losing in Barcelona to Alex de Minaur in two sets and leaving more doubts than certainties regarding his future, Rafael Nadal performed better to defeat the same opponent, now at the Mutua Madrid Open. Taking into account the Australian’s ranking, 11th place, this was Nadal’s first victory over a top 20 since November 2022, but the former world number 1 admits that he is still far from the level that led him to win five titles in this ATP Masters 1000.
“It takes time. For a moment, there was a good level of tennis, I did positive things, but it was still irregular. I’m super happy to be competitive against a player like Alex, for more than two hours”, acknowledged Nadal, after winning, 7-6 (8/6), 6-3. In the third round, the Spaniard will face Argentine Pedro Cachin (91st).
Saturday was also a successful day for Portuguese tennis. In Ostrava, Henrique Rocha and Jaime Faria, both 20 years old, won their first title together on the ATP Challenger Tour. In the last meeting, the Portuguese duo beat the Germans Jakob Schnaitter and Mark Wallner, 7-5. 6-3.
A week after becoming the first Portuguese women to win a tournament on the WTA circuit, Francisca and Matilde Jorge won the 16th title of their career together. In the final of the Oeiras CETO Open, an ITF tournament in the W100 category, the sisters from Guimarães defeated Yana Sizikova and Fang-Hsieh Wu, 6-2, 6-0, to win their second most important title on the professional circuit – right after the WTA 125.