\u201cIt’s positive, because now I don’t feel that something went wrong with my body. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. But I\u2019m gonna try. I\u2019m gonna do things the right way to try to be ready for tomorrow\u201d, Rafael Nadal assured the media on Monday shortly after coming through another match, this one requiring three hours of fight to ensure his romance with the Mutua Madrid Open could live on one day longer.<\/p>\n
The five-time champion regaled the 12,000 fans who cheered his name in the Manolo Santana Stadium with another victory that evoked his battles of old on the Madrid clay against Argentina\u2019s Pedro Cach\u00edn (6-1, 6-7[5], 6-3).<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to improve in a lot of areas, but I held up and I\u2019m happy. Winning the second set would have benefitted me much more than playing three hours, but I won and I\u2019m happy about that, happy to have been able to face the challenge of the third set and to have improved. Things don\u2019t come automatically. I made him play and he showed signs of tension closing out the second set. In the third I did manage to make a change in the way I was playing\u201d, explained the 22-time Grand Slam champion.<\/p>\n
Nadal\u2019s connection with the fans in the Spanish capital was on display once again during the most emotional moments of the encounter. Chants of \u2018Vamos, Rafa!\u2019 from the stands were punctuated with first pumps from the Mallorcan player, who was spurred on in long rallies and decisive points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m enjoying myself. That doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not hopeful. I\u2019ve received a lot of support in Madrid throughout my career and this year is more special, if that\u2019s possible. I\u2019m managing to enjoy it, but I didn\u2019t want to lose. That would have bothered me. I\u2019m happy about everything that\u2019s happening to me in Madrid. I\u2019ve built my entire career by evaluating small improvements and building my confidence from the bottom up. I\u2019m trying to go through that process once again, even though it\u2019s at a much more difficult time\u201d, explained the Balearic Islander.<\/p>\n
Nadal has earned the right to a fourth outing in the Caja Magica. It will come on Tuesday, when he will close out the day\u2019s play in the Manolo Santana Stadium against Czech player Jiri Lehecka. \u201cPlaying at night gives me more time to sleep and work tomorrow. It\u2019s a bit of an unknown quantity because I haven\u2019t played three hours for a long time. It\u2019s important to keep taking risks and for them to come off. To me it\u2019s positive, I\u2019ve been mentally awake and I\u2019ve accepted the mental challenge. I hope to take more steps forward tomorrow\u201d, continued the former world No. 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI practised with Lehecka the other day, he has a big serve and good groundstrokes. His quality and ball speed are a step up. I wasn\u2019t surprised to win today, doing so tomorrow would be another step forward. But just competing tomorrow would be a success\u201d, concluded Nadal of his fourth-round opponent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIt’s positive, because now I don’t feel that something went wrong with my body. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. But I\u2019m gonna try. I\u2019m gonna do things the right way to try to be ready for tomorrow\u201d, Rafael Nadal assured the media on Monday shortly after coming through another match, this one requiring three hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":94606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[838,875,999],"tags":[1026,825,852],"class_list":["post-94614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-tenis-masculino-en","category-mutua-news-en","category-tennis-en","tag-2024-en","tag-atp-en-2","tag-rafael-nadal-en-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94616,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94614\/revisions\/94616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}