Rafael Nadal gives hope after his tough first victory in Rome: "I played almost three hours and I feel good"

Rafael Nadal has lived a more complicated first round at the Rome Masters 2024 than expected. He faced Zizou Bergs, a Belgian tennis player from the qualifying round. After losing the first set, the Spanish player was not looking good, however, once again, he showed us that we should never give him up for dead and brought out his most competitive side to turn the scoreboard around.

He ended up winning 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, and now he will face Hubert Hurkacz in the second round, one of the best servers in the world, if not the best, against whom he will have to return as many balls as possible and be fine with his serve. It is very likely that the match against the Pole will not last as long as today's almost 3 hours but he will have to try to make the world number 9 move as much as possible.

After the match against Bergs, Nadal spoke on court, where he evaluated the match, being very happy for the victory but knowing that he has to play better to continue going through the rounds:

"Yes, of course, it wasn't my best match. I've been training better than I played today without any doubt, but I found a way to win and that's very important in the beginning of the tournament. For me it's normal, as I said, my game is more predictable than before, I haven't played much tennis in the last two years. So, yes, up and down, but I think I can do much better than I did today and I hope to do it in the next round."

He also talked about what it means to him to play in Rome, a tournament he has won 10 times in his career, where he has reached the final 12 times and has absolutely all the records and best statistics on Italian clay:

"It's always exciting to play here. These types of tournaments are the most important in my tennis career. Honestly, the crowd has always been spectacular with me, supporting me since the beginning of my tennis career, so very excited to be able to play tennis once again here."

Finally, as always, he left us with a few words in Spanish, evaluating and analyzing in more depth the development of the match and his feelings:

"Well, a difficult match. I think the match had started well for me, 3-1, 30-0 with more or less comfort playing well, and then I played a very bad game and, from there, there have been 20 minutes of many doubts. I was not able to play calmly, and the truth is that I am happy because in the end I found a way to win, which for me is very important today because of the confidence, because I played again for almost three hours and I feel good, and I have the chance to play again in two days".