Rafael Nadal has defeated Ryan Harrison of USA in the opening round of the ongoing US Open. Nadal won the match in the straight sets by 6-4, 6-2, 6-2.
Nadal has entered this tournament as the top favourite. His form on the grass courts has just been magnificent in recent times. With the win over Harrison, he has now extended his winning streak to 16 matches on grass courts.
Nadal hadn’t taken part in the US Open last year because of a nasty knee injury which kept him out of the game for a very long period. But, after his comeback, Nadal has shown some great form. He has won a total of 9 titles this season.
The Spanish no. 1 has played a total of 57 matches after his comeback and he has won 54 out of them.
In the match against Harrison, Nadal began with a bang. He sneaked a breakthrough in the very first game of the opening set and then, held his serve in the next game to enhance his lead to 2-0.
In the next 7 games, neither of the two players dropped his serve and when the 9th game finished, Nadal was ahead by 5-4.
Harrison had to get a breakthrough somehow in the 10th game to drag the set further, but, he wasn’t able to do so. Nadal held on again and won the opener.
The Spaniard continued on his merry way in the second set as well. He held his entire serves and broke the service of his opponent a couple of times to clinch the set easily by 6-2.
At the start of the third set, Nadal played some ruthless shots and Harrison didn’t seem to have any answer of those shots. He lost his serve consecutively in the 1st and the 3rd game and got down by 0-4.
The American player needed to play some extraordinary tennis to get himself back into the match from that situation, but, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t stop Nadal from holding his remaining serves and ended up losing the contest.