Nadal defeated in first round
MELBOURNE, Australia — Rafael Nadal lost to Fernando Verdasco in the first round of the Australian Open, an unprecedentedly early exit at Melbourne Park for the 14-time Grand Slam winner and a reversal of their epic, 5-hour, 14-minute semifinal here six years ago.
Fernando Verdasco rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win the last two sets, recovering a break in the fifth as well, claiming a 7-6 (6), 4-6, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, only his third victory in 17 matches against his fellow Spanish lefthander.
Nadal won his only Australian title in 2009 after beating Verdasco in the semifinals. His only other first-round exit in a major was at Wimbledon in 2013 when he lost in straight sets to No. 135-ranked Steve Darcis of Belgium.
“It’s a hard and painful loss,” the fifth-seeded Nadal said.
Verdasco went for everything on his ground strokes, ripping 90 winners against only 37 for Nadal as he worked to the extremes to unsettle his former No. 1-ranked rival.
“To win against Rafa here coming from two sets down is unbelievable,” the 32-year-old, No. 45-ranked Verdasco said. “I think I played unbelievable — the fifth set from the break that he made me, I just started hitting winners. I don’t know how, just, you know I was closing the eyes and everything was coming in and I keep doing it and I was doing well.”
A winning service return from Verdasco ended the match in 4 hours, 41 minutes.
“Well I think 2009 was maybe the only day in my life that I hit 4, 5 hours,” Verdasco said, looking at the clock beside the court to compare it with their semifinal meeting. “It was 35 minutes shorter today — I didn’t want to make it longer.”
There were two upsets on the women’s side, with No. 2 Simona Halep and seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams losing in the first round.
Halep, the 2014 French Open finalist, lost 6-4, 6-3 to Zhang Shuai for her third first-round loss at Melbourne Park in the past five years, but giving the No. 133-ranked Chinese qualifier her first win at a Grand Slam after 14 losses.
Williams lost 6-4, 6-2 to Johanna Konta, her eighth first-round loss at a major.
The upset results took some focus off the match-fixing allegations that have overshadowed the first two days of the season’s first major.
No. 2-ranked Andy Murray began his bid for a drought-breaking title at the Australian Open with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 win over Alexander Zverev, checked to see there were no urgent calls from home, and had to answer questions immediately about the reports.
