Rafael Nadal reached his first tournament final in more than two years on Saturday, coming from a set and a break down to defeat Duje Ajdukovic 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 at the Nordea Open in Bastad, Sweden.
Nadal’s last ATP Tour final — and win — came in June 2022 at the French Open.
After dropping the first set to the Croatian qualifier, Nadal quickly went down in the second set, broken in the first game. But Nadal found another gear, breaking Ajdukovic’s serve five times throughout the rest of the two-hour, 13-minute semifinal.
“Always it is a great feeling to be back in a final,” Nadal, of Spain, said after the clay-court match. “I have won four matches in a row, something I was not able to make happen since two years ago. A lot of things happened, but still in this process of recovering, a lot of things I lost, because I had a very important hip surgery almost one year ago.
“So things were not going that easy, but I am fighting. I am fighting during the whole tournament to be where I am today.”
In the final, Nadal will face No. 7 seed Nuno Borges of Portugal, a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Argentine Thiago Agustin Tirante on Saturday.
Hamburg Open
Playing in his native country, No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev fed off the home crowd for a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Spain’s Pedro Martinez in a semifinal match in Germany.
Zverev collected 13 aces to Martinez’s one. The only time he let Martinez take a lead was at 1-0 in the first set, and from there the German won six of the next seven games before taking the first two of the second set.
French fifth seed Arthur Fils will collide with Zverev in the final after pulling off a 6-2, 6-2 upset of No. 3 seed Sebastian Baez of Argentina.
EFG Swiss Open Gstaad
Italy’s Matteo Berrettini, the No. 6 seed, punched his ticket to the final in Gstaad, Switzerland, completing a stunning 7-6 (6), 7-5 sweep of top-seeded Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Berrettini won 46 of 50 first-service points while also amassing 27 winners. He rallied from a 6-5 deficit in the first set to force a tiebreaker, where he crawled out of a 5-4 hole to head into the second set with some momentum.
French qualifier Quentin Halys also pulled off an upset, beating No. 5 seed Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany 6-3, 7-6 (2) in Saturday’s other semifinal.
Infosys Hall of Fame Open
Second seed Marcos Giron outlasted No. 4 seed Christopher Eubanks for a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 win in an all-American semifinal match in Newport, R.I.
Giron converted 2 of 3 break points in a dominant third set that saw him race out to a 3-0 lead and never look back.
Another American awaits Giron in the final, as No. 3 seed Alex Michelsen ousted wild card and countryman Reilly Opelka 6-2, 6-0 in the other semifinal.
–Field Level Media
