In an on-court interview following his win, the oft-injured Nadal had a deadpan response when asked how he stays so young-looking at the age of 34.<\/p>\n
"You are not in my body," Nadal replied, smiling.<\/p>\n
However, Nadal then took a more serious approach to his interview when he spoke highly of Australia's response to the coronavirus pandemic, declaring the country is a "positive example" for how the rest of the world should be responding. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
"It's been a hard year for the whole world in general," he added. <\/p>\n
"For us in Spain, we were hit very hard with the virus. We're still in a very tough situation.<\/p>\n
"I think Australia is an amazing, positive example for how to make things the right way and control the pandemic. So, many congratulations to the country.<\/p>\n
"Last two weeks have been great, of course it's not ideal to stay 14 days in quarantine but that's the way that we need to do things today.<\/p>\n
"We can't thank South Australia and Tennis Australia enough."<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Serena Williams was preparing to play Naomi Osaka at the Adelaide exhibition tournament. But first things first \u2014 after 14 days in quarantine because of the COVID-19 pandemic regulations, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion took her daughter to the zoo.<\/p>\n
Williams said she'd been crossing off the 14 days of quarantine on a calendar, having spent the time with her three-year-old daughter Olympia.<\/p>\n
"We went to the zoo," Williams said of her first movements outside of quarantine. "I am so glad it's over because to be in a room (for so long) with a three-year-old and being her best friend is definitely difficult, especially after training and working out.<\/p>\n
"Honestly, I wouldn't trade anything, spending hours and hours and hours with her was really fun."<\/p>\n
![\"Day](\"https:\/\/vms-network-images-prod.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/2021\/01\/339507\/pickerImage.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The visit must have been a good pre-match tonic for Williams. She beat Osaka 6-2, 2-6, 10-7. Both players showed obvious signs of rustiness, hitting set-up winners out of play or netting relatively easy shots.<\/p>\n
"Thanks everyone for having us. We honestly haven't played in front of a crowd for over a year, it's been a really long time, so this is really cool," Williams said.<\/p>\n
She acknowledged the tough 14-day quarantine restrictions that were in place to allow the Australian Open to take place beginning Feb. 8.<\/p>\n
"Thanks for trusting us with your laws, (it) was great," Williams added. "We were so happy just to be here, and now it's worth it."<\/p>\n
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rafael Nadal has praised Australia's COVID-19 response following his straights sets win over Dominic Thiem at the Adelaide Super Slam. Nadal on Friday kick-started his […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28666"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28668,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28666\/revisions\/28668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}