After finally beginning a season with no injury concerns, Rafael Nadal has as clean a shot at the Australian Open as he could hope for as he takes aim at equalling Roger Federer’s record of 20 Grand Slam titles, Reuters reports.
Melbourne is the Slam that the 19-times champion has found the hardest to win, with his only triumph coming in 2009 when he overcame Federer in a five-set epic that left his Swiss rival in floods of tears.
He has reached the final four times in the last decade and lost on each occasion, twice to Novak Djokovic, including a trouncing last year, once to Federer and one shock reverse at the hands of Stan Wawrinka in 2014.
“Rafa is in spectacular form and now it’s just a question of maintaining his level,” said coach Francis Roig after arriving in Australia with Nadal ahead of the ATP Cup.
“He is feeling very confident because of how he has been playing and because his serve is helping him a lot.”
Talk of chasing down Federer’s 20 Slams will gather pace as each day passes in Melbourne, although Nadal maintains that drawing level with the Swiss is not something he obsesses over.
“I make my own path because you can’t always be frustrated or over-ambitious,” he told Spanish newspaper AS in December.
“When you do everything you can, you’re aren’t obliged to do anything else. At the end of the year I want to be able to say I’ve done enough to make things go as well as possible.”
