After a playing time of 5:24 hours, Nadal won in five sets with 2: 6, 6: 7 (5: 7), 6: 4, 6: 4 and 7: 5 against the second in the world rankings from Russia. It was the second longest final in the tournament’s history. 13 years earlier, Nadal had won his only trophy at the Australian Open.
The 35-year-old Spaniard wrote tennis history with it. Because the success of Melbourne was his 21st win in a Grand Slam tournament. So far, Nadal had shared the record with Novak Djokovic (Serbia) and Roger Federer (Switzerland).
“It was one of the most emotional matches of my career”, said Nadal, “I also congratulate Daniil on his performance. He will win the tournament several times in the future.” The winner sent a special thank you to the spectators: “I’ve had incredible support over the past few weeks.”
Medvedev initially very cool
For a long time Nadal didn’t look like the great triumphant, although the Spaniard almost sold out the audience from the start Rod Laver Arena was fully behind. Again and again the spectators whipped the Mallorcan forward. Medvedev stayed cool and didn’t let that bother him at first – the Russian scored the decisive points, winning the first round relatively easily after 42 minutes.