Rafa Nadal sends important signal ahead of Paris 2024
Rafa Nadal dreams of third Olympic medal
After almost two months of inactivity due to a conscious decision to forgo the season on grass to continue training on clay in preparation for Paris 2024, Rafa Nadal is showing at the Bastad tournament in Sweden that he is in more than decent shape: in fact, the Mallorcan reached the semifinals, beating Argentine Mariano Navone, No. 36 ATP, 6-7(2), 7-5, 7-5 in the quarters.
In the previous rounds, Nadal had beaten Leo Borg (son of Bjorn and current world No. 461) with a comfortable 6-3, 6-4, before prevailing over Britain's Cameron Norrie, who is ranked 42nd in the world, winning with a double 6-4 in an hour and three quarters of play.
Against Navone, the quarterfinal match was not easy for Nadal, who occupies the 261st place in the ranking due to the many tournaments missed, in the last two years, due to injury: the Argentine won the first set on tie-break, in the second è he was able to come back three games behind, in the third è he started with an immediate break.
Nadal, however, never lost concentration and thanks to his experience è managed to overcome the difficult moments, going on to take a place in the semifinals in the Swedish tournament: è a strong signal in view of Paris 2024, a tournament in which Nadal would like to win his third Olympic medal after the gold in Beijing 2008 in the singles and the doubles in 2016 paired with Marc Lopez.
