Rafael Nadal was defeated by 22nd seed Frances Tiafoe at the 2022 US Open round of 16 stage on Monday. The 22-time Grand Slam champion, after losing the first set, came back in the second. However, he lost the next two. 

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Tiafoe won 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the round of 16 match. He will now play Andy Rublev in the quarterfinal on Wednesday.

Like the previous rounds, Nadal lost the first set against Tiafoe too. The two held on to their first three service games. The American then broke his opponent in the seventh game to take a 4-3 lead. He then clinched the set 6-4.

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This is the third time in four matches at the US Open 2022 that Rafa has lost his first set. Tiafoe served better than Nadal. More surprisingly, he returned better, too. And he kept his cool, remained in the moment and never let the stakes or the opponent get to him. Nadal, a 36-year-old from Spain, had won both of their previous matches, and every set they played, too.

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“Well, the difference is easy: I played a bad match and he played a good match,” Nadal said. “At the end that’s it.”

Rafael Nadal was accused of ‘cheating’ on social media. The 36-year-old took a nine-minute toilet break, which Twitter users said was to break his opponent’s momentum. He was accused by a journalist of manipulating the match rules during his tournament opener against Australian Rinky Hijikata.

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 The journalist said that Nadal was taking to long to take his serve and the judges were equally culpable for not taking any action against him. 

In the second round vs Fabio Fognini, Nadal lost the first set 2-6. However, he turned it around to take the match. In the fourth set, the match was delayed by five minutes after the Spanish legend cut himself on the bridge of his nose when his racket bounced off the court and smacked him in the face. He took a medical timeout as a trainer applied a bandage on his nose. 

Also read: US Open 2022: Rafael Nadal slammed for taking 9-minute break mid-game vs Frances Tiafoe

In the third set against France’s Richard Gasquet, Nadal looked ordinary. The game got to 5-all, before the No 2 seed took the last two games. He won 6-0, 6-1, 7-5.