Australian Open 2021 - 'He'll shrug it off!' - Rafael Nadal will bounce back, says Mats Wilander

ByCarrie Dunn

Published 17/02/2021 at 15:42 GMT

Rafael Nadal was two sets up in the quarter-final of the Australian Open and lost in five sets to Stefanos Tsitsipas. Eurosport expert Mats Wilander has absolute faith that the great Spaniard will recover from the defeat, and stay competitive for the rest of the year, despite the massive disappointment he suffered in Melbourne.

Rafael Nadal won't suffer any ill effects from his five-set defeat to Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarter-final of the Australian Open.

That's according to Eurosport expert Mats Wilander, who says that the Spaniard's performance will actually give him reassurance for the forthcoming clay court season and Roland-Garros, where he is dominant.

When asked in The Cube by Barbara Schett how the 20-time Grand Slam champion would recover from the loss, Wilander replied: "Two, three weeks off probably.

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"He's going hit some balls, get back on those clay courts and realise, 'I'm at the same level now that I was last year at the French Open'. because he played a great match. That he doesn't win this match is basically bad luck."

Wilander added that Nadal would not be troubled by his failure to win the title in Melbourne, and would find it easy to put it in perspective.

Highlights | Stefanos Tsitsipas - Rafael Nadal

"I think the fact that he can't win the Australian Open, again he's only won here once, I think he's going to shrug it off and realise, 'maybe I wasn't strong enough physically to keep this level up'. He was going for big shots. Early on we talked about that - that's not him, and it didn't work."

Fellow expert Tim Henman agreed, saying: "He'll be fine... It's a massively disappointing defeat, but again he's been around for so long, he's so experienced, he's had amazing highs, and this will be disappointing but...there's going to be many more opportunities ahead of him in this year and if he's fit and healthy, then I'm sure he can be back winning big events in the future."

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