Australian Open: Nadal walks in on the sport

Now only three steps left over the record in the Grand Slam: Rafael Nadal reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open after another impressive performance. World No. 2 from Spain defeated 16th seed Italian tennis player Fabio Funini in 2:16 hours, 6: 3, 6: 4, 6: 2 on Monday. Nadal stays in Melbourne without losing a set.

In the fight for a place in the semi-finals, the 34-year-old meets Greek Stephanos Tsitsipas. “In the Grand Slam quarter-finals, there are only strong opponents. It will be a huge challenge,” Nadal said in an interview with the winner on the field. For the thirteenth time, he reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, and for the 43rd time, he reached the top eight players in the Grand Slam tournament.

“I didn’t know that, good number,” Nadal said. He would have achieved a much better and more significant number with three more wins below: first and foremost – in 2009 – the left-wing player from Mallorca won the Australian Open. If he does win on Sunday, he will set the only record with his 21st Grand Slam title, ahead of Roger Federer, who missed this year and, like Nadal, has won the title 20 times in one of the more four times. Important tournaments and the winner is.

Only in the final can there be a duel between Nadal and Novak Djokovic or Alexander Zverev. The quarter-final match between the 23-year-old from Hamburg and the defending champion Djokovic was set for the world number one on Tuesday as the last game in the evening tournament (around 11am CET / Eurosport). Before that (9 am), American Serena Williams and Romanian second seed Simona Halep face each other in the women’s quarter-finals. Surprisingly Americans Jessica Bigula and Jennifer Brady secured a spot in the quarter-finals on Monday. The unspecified Bigula beat the world number five, Gelena Sweetolina of Ukraine, 6: 4, 3: 6, 6: 3. She ranked 61 in the world rankings in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career and meets her good friend Brady, who defeated the Croatian Donna Vikic 6: 1, 7: 5.

In the men’s quarter-finals there will be a duel between two powerful Russian players, between the ATP Cup champion Daniel Medvedev and Andrei Rublev. Medvedev, world number four and ATP Finals champion Mackenzie MacDonald, did not give Mackenzie Macdonald a chance at 6: 4, 6: 2, 6: 3. Soon after, Rubliov took advantage of abandoning his opponent in the match against Norway’s Kasper Rudd.

Roblev drove 6: 2, 7: 6 (7: 3) when Rod was unable to continue playing due to abdominal muscle problems. Since the qualifiers also qualified Aslan Karazio the day before, three Russian men have reached the quarter-finals for the first time in a Grand Slam tournament.

For Medvedev, this was the 18th successive victory. At the end of last year, he won the Masters 1000 Championship in Paris and the ATP Finals in London. At the start of this season, he won the ATP Cup with fellow countryman Rublev and won all four of his singles.