Carlos Alcaraz reaches first grand slam semifinal after marathon, late-night finish against Jannik Sinner
The former world number one Rafael Nadal will have to make sure he is fit in time for the Miami Open next week after he missed the third and final scheduled match of his career on Friday night.
Nadal played a straight sets win over world number six Jannik Sinner, 7-6 (2), 6-2, 6-4 in his home city of Madrid.
Nadal and his brother will meet in the final of the tournament, which is scheduled to take place on April 4-9 in Miami.
In a marathon, late-night match, Nadal came back to win the first set in 33 minutes before the injury time limit was invoked but lost the second set in a game that went to 31.
Sinner, who lost his first-round Wimbledon match to Novak Djokovic in straight sets, had a match point in the third set, but Nadal eventually won it.
The Spaniard had not played since last week and has also been training in Miami, which will be his fourth tournament in as many weeks.
Nadal has been sidelined by back and knee injuries since Nov. 16 and it is not known when he will be available but his coach Rafael Nadal said it was going to take a little while to find out.
“It’s the last tournament in the season and he hasn’t played the last tournament,” said Rafael Nadal who revealed on Friday that he is to be examined on Saturday.
“He says that he’s still not 100 percent. We’ll know tomorrow if he needs to be examined or not.”
Nadal, who was the first tennis player to reach six Grand Slam finals and has played 14 Grand Slam singles finals, has played three matches since returning to the court and faces Roger Federer in the first round.
Federer, who beat Rafael Nadal in the 2010 French Open final, faces a tough task in getting past the Spaniard and will need to take advantage of the opportunity.
“It’s going to be tough, we’ve played each other a few times during the last weeks, we played at the beginning of the year in Barcelona, we’ll see tomorrow if I can do a good result in this match,” said Federer.
Federer said before the second week
