20.09.2020
07:08
The Peque managed to beat the Spanish after falling nine times in a row in front of him
September 20, 2020 Share on FacebookShare Share on TwitterTweet Share on WhatsAppShare
Rafa Nadal during his Italian Open quarterfinal match against Diego Schwartzman
The Spanish Rafa Nadal , nine times champion, lost this Saturday 6-2 and 7-5 against Argentine Diego Schwartzman , number 15 in the world ranking, and said goodbye in the quarterfinals of the 1000 Masters in Rome, which he had won. the last two editions.
Nadal, who returned to compete in Rome after six and a half months away from the courts , had won the previous nine matches with Schwartzman, but this Saturday he could not in two hours and three minutes before a tennis recital by the Argentine.
The Peque , who chained his second consecutive semifinal at the Foro Italico, will fight for the final this Sunday against the Canadian Denis Shapovalov , who eliminated the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. The other semi-final will be played by Serbian Novak Djokovic and Norwegian Casper Ruud.
The Argentine won and qualified for the semifinals
“It has been a bad night, against a rival who plays very well, so congratulations and merit for him and for me, demerit for not having done things well enough,” Nadal, nine-time champion in Rome, acknowledged at the end of his match .
The Spaniard delivered his serve three consecutive times in the second set and succumbed for the first time in ten meetings against the solid tennis of Schwartzman, a semi-finalist twice in a row in Rome.
“He has played a great game and I have not. He is one of the best in the world and when you play against these players, if you don’t play at your level, it is normal to lose and that is what has happened ”, considered the current world number 2.
The Argentine had fallen to the Spanish on nine occasions
“What happens is that if you lose three consecutive times the serve at these levels is impossible. The conditions were heavier than the previous days, the ball did not run as much as in the previous days. I had not competed for many months, without having that automatic ability to adapt to the conditions. Maybe I need to compete and play very long points, these are things that one needs to incorporate ”, he added.
Nadal, who finished with a modest 43% of first serves , vertically worsened his numbers in the second set. He suffered three consecutive breaks and despite returning two, had to give up on Schwartzman’s first match point.
The Argentine’s rival in the semifinals this Sunday will be Canadian Denis Shapovalov, world number 14, who won his first victory in three games against the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov by beating him 6-2, 3-6 and 6-2 against the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov (b.22).
