Spanish tennis GOAT Rafael Nadal just won the Australian Open and became the first man to win 21 Grand Slam titles in the process — casually beating Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic to the record, who were both also sitting on 20. Onya mate.
Nadal played against Russia’s number two seed Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open men’s singles finals on Sunday night.
Medvedev appeared to be in control of the match early, winning the first two sets 6-2, 7-6(5) until Nadal claimed the third — the same set Medvedev lost his cool and went on a rant about crowd noise AND the ballkids to chair umpire John Blom.
Nadal went on to take the fourth set 6-4, forcing the men’s Australian Open final into a gruelling fifth set at around midnight local time.
In the fifth, Nadal broke early and fought to hold serve, with Medvedev breaking back when Nadal was serving for the match to bring it level at 5-5.
But not to be deterred, Nadal broke Medvedev’s next service game to once again serve for the championship — and took it out.
Nadal had only ever come back from two losing sets twice in his career according to ABC reporter Paul Johnson. Both times occurred during a game at Wimbledon and the most recent one of them was back in *checks notes* 2007.
Honestly it’s just nice to see someone other than that notorious flog Novak Djokovic win something for a change.
Aside from the actual tennis, it was an action-packed couple of weeks, with a refugee detention protestor escorted off the court halfway through the match. Medvedev and Nadal were in the middle of their second set in Sunday’s final when the protestor climbed down to the court at Rod Laver Arena.
They were carrying a banner that read “Abolish Refugee Detention” and jumped around three metres from the seats down to the court before security and Victoria Police officers intervened, dragging them away.
Tennis player Nick Kyrgios called out a fan and their mates for booing during the men’s doubles final on Saturday night.
Kyrgios and his partner Thanasi Kokkinakis were playing against Aussie duo Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell. The booing occurred as Purcell was serving and led to security kicking the bad sportsmanship fan out of the stadium before the Special K’s victory.
In some certified good Australian Open news, living ledge Ash Barty became the first Aussie woman to win the tourney in 40 years, like the icon she is.
Fellow Aussie hero Dylan Alcott lost his final tennis match ever on Thursday against Dutch tennis player Sam Schröder but the match still delayed the nightly news bulletin because it was essential viewing.
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