The Nordea Open continues this week as Rafa Nadal faces Cameron Norrie as Mariano Navone goes up against Sumit Nagal. Damien Kayat previews.
2024 ATP Tour – ATP 250
Nordea Open
Bastad Tennis Centre
Selected RO16 matches – 18 July
Rafa Nadal 52/100 | Cameron Norrie 29/20
Rafa Nadal’s long-awaited return to singles action never disappointed, with the former World No.1 taking down Leo Borg (son of the great Bjorn Borg) in straight sets.
Nadal decided to skip the grass-court campaign altogether this season, choosing to recuperate from the muscle injuries that afflicted him earlier this year.
And he did show some understandable signs of rustiness against Borg, tumbling behind the baseline in just the 12th minute of the match. Nadal, playing for the first time here since winning the title back in 2005, slowly grew into the match, looking more and more penetrative in the wet, heavy conditions.
The win improved his 2024 record to 8-5 and it will be interesting to see how he approaches this latter portion of the season. He is participating in the doubles section alongside Casper Rudd, playing with the type of joyful exuberance usually reserved for exhibition matches.
Could the end be coming sooner than we think for Nadal? Perhaps at the Olympic games?
Next up for Nadal is fellow lefty Cameron Norrie. The Brit has really failed to kick on since his brilliant 2022 Wimbledon semi-final run, arguably playing a few too many events over the past three years.
He is a pugnacious fighter who doesn’t necessarily blow opponents away. He has endured a difficult campaign, not going beyond the 4th round of a slam whilst also not progressing beyond the third round of a Masters 1000 event.
He also recently relinquished his British No.1 spot to Jack Draper (though he did pick up that morale-boosting win at Wimbledon). Still, he looked quite composed in his opener, needing just an hour and 35 minutes to see off Jozef Kovalik in straight sets.
The Brit served brilliantly throughout the match but he required six looks before securing a break-point (which also happened to be match point). Norrie has a habit of upsetting top players on clay, memorably downing Carlos Alcaraz in the 2023 Rio final.
The Verdict: Nadal to win in three at 11/4
Nadal leads their head-to-head rivalry 4-1 (this despite the fact that they only had their first meeting in 2021). Nadal has won both their clay-court meetings and has dominated the Brit in the twilight stages of his career.
Norrie should stand a chance given Nadal’s lack of match fitness. But Nadal just got better and better against Borg, hitting 24 winners in heavy conditions.
Mariano Navone 66/100 | Sumit Nagal 23/20
23-year-old Argentine Mariano Navone has come from virtually nowhere to become an extremely dangerous clay-court practitioner this season. He actually started to catch the eye last year, winning a mind-boggling five ATP Challenger titles.
Those lower-tier performances imbued the Argentine with confidence and he took to tour-level tennis like a duck to water, reaching his maiden ATP 500 final in Rio.
He would also go on to reach the semi-finals of the Grand Prix Hassan II before another runner-up finish in Romania. His results have dried up a bit since then but you have to consider this is his first season playing main-draw tennis. These post-Wimbledon clay-court events have a similar feel to the Golden Swing and he should find conditions to his liking.
Sumit Nagal has enjoyed a solid under-the-radar season that has seen him rise to a career-high ranking of 68 in the world. The Indian No.1 – who is bound for the Paris Olympics later this year – has managed to reach the main draw in each of this year’s Grand Slam tournaments (winning a match in Australia).
He has augmented those encouraging Grand Slam runs with some solid tennis on the Challenger circuit, winning a title in Heilbronn before a runner-up finish in Perugia (both events played on clay courts in June).
He has turned into a really solid baseliner, generating significant topspin off that forehand wing. He just saw off the dangerous Ymer in straight sets (he was 2-0 against the Swede going into that match).
The Verdict: Navone to win in straight sets 31/20
This will be the first career meeting between these two. Navone makes for an obvious favourite given his exploits earlier in the season. But his results have quietened down and Nagal has looked really solid at Challenger level of late.
I just think that Navone will be too much for Nagel on these slowish surfaces. Lest we forget, Navone has picked up victories against the likes of Norrie and Wawrinka this season.
