Rafael Nadal made a strong comeback after his long injury hiatus. A memorable comeback after 12 months saw the Spanish ace defeat Dominic Thiem in a stunning game in the Brisbane International. But that is not all. With this win, Rafael Nadal has registered his 1069th win in ATP matches.
With this win, Nadal is now the 3rd highest in terms of most wins in ATP. Ahead of him lies Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Djokovic has 1089 wins under his belt while, Federer raked up 1,251 wins.
When questioned about his win and the record that he has set, Nadal revealed that he is not much into statistics. “Well, as you can imagine it was not a statistic that I was aware of,” replied Nadal.
ATP Records – Most Wins
1,251 | Roger Federer |
1,089 | Novak Djokovic |
1,069 | Rafael Nadal |
735 | Andre Agassi |
734 | Pete Sampras |
734 | David Ferrer |
733 | Andy Murray |
640 | Tomáš Berdych |
616 | Lleyton Hewitt |
612 | Andy Roddick |
Nadal who made his comeback into the court after a span of 349 days, overcame all odds to defeat Dominic Thiem 7-5, 6-1. The 22 Grand Slam winner is playing his last season before hanging up his boots. Last year, a knee injury forced Nadal to withdraw from the Australian Open.
Nadal underwent the knife and recovered with time. But the Spaniard has made it clear, that this will be his last year in the sport.
“Today is honestly an emotional and important day for me after probably one of the toughest years of my tennis career,” said Nadal after the match.
“I had the chance to come back after a year and play in front of an amazing crowd and play at a very positive level on the first day, [It] is something that makes us feel proud – my team and family who have been there every day in the last year,” Nadal concluded.