ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Rafael Nadal said earlier in the week that he was unaware of his career statistics. Now he might want to look at them.
The 35-year-old Spaniard defeated Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday to win the Mexican Open and extend his best career start for a season to 15-0 when he won his 91st ATP title.
Nadal, who won his third title in 2022, including the Australian Open for his record 21st Grand Slam title in singles, took three wins to match Ivan Lendl’s 94 tally for third for most championships in the Open Era. . Jimmy Connors leads with 109 and Roger Federer has 103.
“In the end, I’ve always said that records like this should be measured when your career is over,” Nadal said. “Today the most important thing is that I won a prestigious tournament.”
The Mexican Open is an ATP 500 tournament played on hard courts and this year four of the top five players in the world started the draw: Daniil Medvedev (2), Alexander Zverev (3), Stefanos Tsitsipas (4) and Nadal ( 5).
Medvedev, who rises to number 1 in the ranking on Monday, lost in the semifinals to Nadal. Zverev was kicked out of the tournament for forcibly slamming his racket into the referee’s seat shortly after losing a double play while Tsitsipas lost to Norrie in the other semi-final.
“(Acapulco) is a tournament that started with five of the best six players in the world, it was complicated and I finally took the win,” added Nadal. “Looking back, this would have seemed impossible a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how things can change in such a short time, from not being able to practice and being where I am today.”
The Spaniard won for the fourth time in Acapulco (2005, 2013 and 2020) where he is a fan favorite.
He won his first title in Mexico when he was 18 and holds the record for youngest winner in tournament history and oldest at 35.
“It’s been a long career, the first time I came here everything was new to me and after all these years you start to appreciate every win more than when you were an 18-year-old boy,” said Nadal.
The Spaniard said his body is holding up well and is eager to play in Indian Wells, California, in a few weeks.
Norrie, who had an eight-game winning streak, sought to become the first British man to win the Mexican Open in its 29-year history.
“I’ve played against him before so I had an idea how to play him, but I gave him some easy points and he didn’t give me anything,” Norrie said. “It was a little lack of concentration, and I gave him the game.”
At the start of the match, Nadal had a break in the fifth game to take a 3-2 lead, then won the first set in 51 minutes.
In the second set, Nadal had a break in the first game, but Norrie returned it and appeared to be back in the game, but the Spaniard added breaks in the fifth and seventh games to take home the trophy.
In the doubles final, Feliciano Lopez and Tsitsipas defeated Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer 7-5, 6-4.
†
More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
