US Open, Fabio Fognini wants to revive Rafa Nadal’s nightmare

The two meet again at Flushing Meadows seven years later

It is often said, and with good reason, how mentally strong Rafa Nadal is. The epic feats achieved by the Spanish champion in his career are now consigned to legend. Faced, however, with an illustrious precedent that saw the Manacor left-hander suffer a comeback on his skin that remained in history, perhaps even someone like him might falter.

The U.S. Open 2022 draw pits the Iberian against Fabio Fognini in the second round. In a balance that generally reads 13 victories for Rafa against only 4 for the Ligurian tennis player, it is impossible to forget what happened in 2015 on the New York venue of Flushing Meadows.

It was the third round of the American Slam, the two came to the confrontation with an ATP ranking that read: Nadal number 8 – already with two triumphs in the U.S. Major behind him – and Fognini number 32. After the first two sets, won by the Mallorcan with a score of 6-4 6-3, no one would have expected the winning comeback of the albeit talented Italian. Not least because until that moment Nadal, in his career, had never lost a best-of-five-set match in a Slam after going ahead in the first two partials.

Instead, Fognini unleashed an incredible performance that consigned him forever to the history of the tournament and beyond: he won the next two partials 6-4 6-3 6-4 breaking down the resistance of an incredulous Nadal. His New York adventure was then interrupted in the fourth round, at the hands of another Spaniard and great friend of Rafa’s – Feliciano Lopez – but the feat remained forever fixed in his memory. And, probably, in that of his opponent as well. The hope is that now, in 2022, perhaps suffering less than he did seven years ago, – or perhaps in the same way, to thrill his fans even more – Fognini can repeat what he did against a true tennis legend.