{"id":395652,"date":"2023-01-16T05:44:16","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T10:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/ca\/?post_type=news&#038;p=395652"},"modified":"2023-01-16T05:44:16","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T10:44:16","slug":"nadal-beats-cramp-hit-brit-draper-at-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/nadal-beats-cramp-hit-brit-draper-at-australian-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Nadal beats cramp-hit Brit Draper at Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back at the Australian Open for the first time since his epic five-set comeback in the 2022 final, top seed Rafael Nadal won another see-saw match in Rod Laver Arena to kickstart his title defence on Monday.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">V A M O S \ud83d\udd25<\/p>\n<p>Make that 7\ufe0f\u20e37\ufe0f\u20e3 career wins in Melbourne for Nadal!<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RafaelNadal?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@RafaelNadal<\/a> \u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AusOpen?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#AusOpen<\/a> \u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AO2023?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#AO2023<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HUTYoBilL5\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/HUTYoBilL5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AustralianOpen\/status\/1614888476704673792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 16, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard delivered in the crucial moments of a 7-5, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory against 21-year-old debutante Jack Draper to reach the Melbourne second round for the 17th time.<\/p>\n<p>The Brit, however, gave Nadal all manner of problems, but was held back by apparent cramping in both the third and fourth sets.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Last year was without a doubt one of the most emotional tournaments of my tennis career. I\u2019m super happy to be back here in Australia one more time,&#8221; 36-year-old Nadal said in his on-court interview.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;One of the most beautiful things in this life.&quot; \ud83e\udd70<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RafaelNadal?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@RafaelNadal<\/a> on becoming a dad. <\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AusOpen?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#AusOpen<\/a> \u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AO2023?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#AO2023<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/e7uED9u7Ul\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/e7uED9u7Ul<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AustralianOpen\/status\/1614894279033233411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 16, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know it\u2019s my 19th season on the professional Tour. I\u2019m very excited about this new beginning, just super happy to be back here in Rod Laver Arena with a victory that I needed. The last couple of months haven\u2019t been easy for me, but hopefully this victory is going to help me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we put [today\u2019s match] in the perspective of all that I went through in the past six months, [it was] a very positive start.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I played against one of the toughest opponents possible in the first round, being seeded. He is young, he has the power and I think he has a great future in front [of him]. We are going to see him playing a lot of years here, having very good results.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Playing for a record-extending 23rd Grand Slam singles title, Nadal is seeking his third title in Melbourne (2009, 2022).<\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard will meet Mackenzie McDonald in the second round after the American&#8217;s 7-6(5), 7-6(1), 1-6, 6-7(10), 6-4 win against countryman Brandon Nakashima on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back at the Australian Open for the first time since his epic five-set comeback in the 2022 final, top seed Rafael Nadal won [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4224,"featured_media":395653,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[5443],"news_category":[16714,16715],"gn_keywords":[],"acf":{"announce":"Spaniard earns first win of 2023 season","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/395652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/395652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395652"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=395652"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=395652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}