Nadal crushes new No 1 Medvedev in Mexico to stay undefeated for 2022

Last month, Rafael Nadal shocked the world when the 35-year-old Spaniard fought back from two sets down against Daniil Medvedev to win an epic five-set victory in the 2022 Australian Open and claim his 21st – and greatest – major championship. Nadal has now underlined that famous triumph with a 6-3, 6-3 straight-sets win in the rematch, crushing his Russian rival – and recently crowned ATP world No 1 – to advance to the Mexico Open final and remain undefeated in his 14 matches this year.

Medvedev only yesterday learned that he had broken the five-year stranglehold of ‘The Big Three’ on men’s tennis’s No 1 ranking. One of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Nadal had held the top slot since Briton Andy Murray ceded it on August 20, 2017. Medvedev, the 2021 US Open champion, was all set to ascend to the top of the pile when the next batch of rankings was released Monday February 28.

That achievement will now ring a little hollow after Nadal again outclassed and outmuscled him in Acapulco. Unlike Melbourne, where the 26-year-old Russian surged to a two-set lead it was the Spaniard who got off to a fast start. Medvedev was forced to defend a couple of breakpoints in his very first service game, before Nadal broke minutes later to take a 3-1 lead, which he held onto to claim the first set 6-3.

Nadal, who sat out much of 2021 with a foot injury that required surgery in September, is undefeated in 2022 and carried a 13-0 record into this semi-final. The depth of his recovery showed in the second set, breaking Medvedev’s serve early to go 1-0 up. But Medvedev grew into the contest as the set progressed and began causing the Spaniard all kinds of problems with his backhand drop shot.

Medvedev earned a total of 11 breakpoints across