Nadal feels motivated to win more Grand Slams

Rafael Nadal was quick in his effort against Fabio Fognini defeating him in straight sets and moving to the Australian Open quarterfinals.

Heading into the Australian Open Rafael Nadal was a bit of a wild card struggling with back issues but it seems like those issues have improved quite a bit as there was no rust in his match against Fabio Fognini. A straight-sets victory was on the menu for the Spaniard who was very happy to move to the quarterfinals:

"I play tennis. I like tennis. I like what I am doing. That's the main thing. Of course, I am very motivated to win Grand Slams and to play in the most important events of the year. No doubt about that… [But] I have never been obsessed [with] trying to be the best. I just do [it] my way. That’s worked for me."

It's a very healthy way to look at things as obsessing over anything often times becomes detrimental to the effort itself. For a Nadal, this way of thinking and working worked extremely well so far in his career. He underlined ambition as something important but only if it doesn't go too far:

"I think ambition is important, to have an ambition, but a healthy ambition. If you have too much ambition, then you can be frustrated when you are not able to achieve all the things that you wanted. I never approached the sport and my career that way."

Focus once more shifted towards the pandemic and the opportunity to play tennis in a global crisis. Asked about if he feels privileged he said:

“We are lucky to be able to keep doing our job without a doubt. We can't complain at all.

The Spaniard will face Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarterfinal. The Greek has a 1-6 H2H record against Nadal but he will enter the match on fresher legs as Berrettini withdrew before opening serve.