Video - Nadal's incredible comeback against Medvedev at the 2019 ATP Finals

At the 2019 Masters in London, Rafael Nadal, who had lost his first round-robin match, was on the brink against Daniil Medvedev, before producing an exceptional comeback to get back into the qualification race.

In 2019, Rafael Nadal had won Roland-Garros and the US Open, and also played in the final of the Australian Open and the semi-finals of Wimbledon, among others. Logically qualified for the ATP Finals, he had ended that season at the top of the ATP rankings as well as the Race rankings. He thus established himself as one of the favorites to win the Masters, which was still being held in London at that time.

However, his ATP Finals campaign had started with a straight-sets loss to the then defending champion, Alexander Zverev (6-2, 6-4). To hope to reach the semi-finals, he therefore had to beat Daniil Medvedev, who had himself produced an exceptional second half of the season.

This was a rematch of the US Open final which had taken place a few weeks earlier, and which had seen the Spaniard win in five sets. In a tight match, the two men were decided in the decisive third set.

The Russian seemed to take a decisive advantage when he led 5-1, then 30-40 on Nadal's serve to earn a match point. But like a champion who refuses defeat, Nadal then produced a sensational comeback which allowed him to win in a nail-biting finish (see video below).

The Majorcan unleashed his shots, sometimes even pushing his opponent into error. After a breath-taking decisive tie-break, Nadal finally prevailed (6-7, 6-3, 7-6 in 2h47), winning for the third time in as many encounters against Medvedev (before ultimately leading the head-to-head 5 wins to 1 at the time of Nadal's retirement announcement in October 2024).

Unfortunately for him, Nadal was unable to reach the semi-finals. Despite a second win in three matches in the final round-robin match against the future winner Stefanos Tsitsipas (6-4, 6-7, 7-5), he finished third because he had won a lower percentage of games (50%) than Tsitsipas (55%) and Zverev (52%), who also had two wins and one loss.

As for Medvedev, he had concluded his first Masters participation with three losses in as many matches, before winning the 2020 edition behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He had won all his matches, including the one against Nadal in the semi-finals (3-6, 7-6, 6-3).