BUENOS AIRES — Rafael Nadal used to be unbeatable on clay, but on Saturday (13 February) the Spaniard suffered a shock defeat to Dominic Thiem in the semi-finals of theArgentina Open.
Nadal had won his only previous clash with 22-year-old Thiem comfortably on clay at the French Open in 2016, but this time the Austrian prevailed 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4).
Thiem is the youngest player in the top 20 and showed his growing maturity by saving a match point at 4-5 in the final set.
He then took advantage of several Nadal errors to dominate the tie-break and win through to the final – where he will face Nadal’s compatriot Nicolas Almagro.
After the match, Thiem hailed the victory as one of the biggest of his career, while Nadal was philosophical in defeat and admitted he needed to find more consistency in his game.
The former world number one finished 2015 in decent form but has struggled so far this year, losing to Novak Djokovic in the final in Doha, and suffering a first-round loss to Fernando Verdasco in the opening round of the Australian Open.
This video was produced exclusively for The Associated Press on February 13, 2016. Click here to watch it. If the link is not working, search “SNTV Nadal”.
