{"id":16241,"date":"2024-04-17T09:32:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T09:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/rafael-nadal-wins-in-straight-sets-at-barcelona-open-on-injury-return\/"},"modified":"2024-04-17T09:32:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T09:32:34","slug":"rafael-nadal-wins-in-straight-sets-at-barcelona-open-on-injury-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/rafael-nadal-wins-in-straight-sets-at-barcelona-open-on-injury-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Nadal wins in straight sets at Barcelona Open on injury return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was intriguing to see what shape Nadal would be in against 62nd-ranked Cobolli, who has only played in the main draw of a Grand Slam twice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A record 12-time champion in Barcelona, Nadal was playing his first clay-court match in 681 days &#8211; when he won the 2022 French Open final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There was an air of anticipation as a packed crowd awaited Nadal&#8217;s arrival on the court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com\/baseline\/articles\/barcelona-open-names-center-court-pista-rafa-nadal\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">which is named in his honour,<span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-1f39n02-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a> with the gangways on his walk out full of ball kids and tournament staff waiting for a glimpse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A near-standing ovation and huge roar greeted Nadal, while the familiar pre-match foibles &#8211; aligning his water bottles, box jumps at the net and zigzagged sprint to the baseline &#8211; were also lapped up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was less certain whether the shot-making and athleticism which they have become accustomed to seeing from Nadal would also return.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Doubts had been raised about the impact of the abdominal injury on his serve and, although it appeared he wasn&#8217;t serving at full tilt, he showed few issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There was, understandably, some early rust in his groundstrokes before Nadal quickly found fluency from both forehand and backhand wings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With Cobolli looking slightly overawed and showing uncertainty in his shots, Nadal cemented an early break for a 4-1 lead and wrapped up the opening set in 43 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whipping a trademark forehand winner down the line in the second game of the second set illustrated his growing confidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nadal edged a run of three straight breaks and saw out victory by taking his second match point, showing his delight with trademark underarm fist pump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/68826952\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was intriguing to see what shape Nadal would be in against 62nd-ranked Cobolli, who has only played in the main draw of a Grand Slam twice. A record 12-time champion in Barcelona, Nadal was playing his first clay-court match in 681 days &#8211; when he won the 2022 French Open final. There was an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16243,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16241\/revisions\/16243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}