Twice Rafael Nadal had no right to clinch the point and twice he did just that.
The champion Spaniard found himself scrapping desperately to remain in back-to-back rallies during the third game of the opening set of the Australian Open final, yet on both occasions he drew upon his freakish ability to leave Daniil Medvedev stunned.
Nadal looked helpless when he threw a stray left arm at a thumping Medvedev forehand down the middle, which the Russian world No.2 had hit from close to the net, but Nadal managed to squeeze the ball into a miniscule pocket to the left of his opponent. Medvedev chased but quickly realised he had no answer for Nadal’s reply.
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“How did he win this point?” said Lleyton Hewitt on Nine’s Wide World of Sports broadcast.
“Could have gone anywhere.
“Great reflexes to be able to somehow flick that back past Medvedev.”
Nadal then made another miraculous escape after running to the net in the following point, setting himself up for a series of rapid-fire volleys.
The 20-time singles grand slam champion appeared no chance of returning a booming Medvedev forehand from just several metres away, but a quick-thinking backhand met the challenge.
“Hasn’t this started like lightning!” Todd Woodbridge said.
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Jim Courier was staggered at Nadal’s consecutive steals, which levelled the scores at 30-30 in the third game of the opening set.
“There’s got to be people watching grand theft in broad daylight right now,” Courier said.
“He just stole those two points.”
Despite Nadal’s incredible back-to-back point wins, the 35-year-old lost the first set 6-2.
Medvedev broke serve to go 3-2 up and broke again to take a 5-2 lead, before holding serve to claim the opener.
How hard Nadal was being made to work was evident in the extraordinary amount of sweat dripping from his clothes.
Even by the third game of the match his shirt was saturated.
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