Rafael Nadal heralds 'future star of tennis' Alexander Zverev but clings gloriously to the present

It was almost irresistible to see the hotly-anticipated clash between Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev as a potential baton-changing moment in men’s tennis, the kind fans both love and loathe to hear about in equal measure.

With Nadal fighting back to regain his status as one of the legitimate Grand Slam contenders and Zverev battling to assert himself in the same category, this was always going to represent a lot more than simply a third-round match with a straight winner and loser.

As with most rising stars, the 19-year-old Zverev has seen his stock – and indeed the hype surrounding him – steadily rise in recent months and his thoroughly entertaining victory over the returning Roger Federer at the Hopman Cup was regarded by many as a sign of things to come.

Nadal has said before that he already regards Zverev as “a complete player in every aspect of the game”, and after vanquishing the young German on Saturday added in his post-match interview, somewhat enticingly, that he is undoubtedly “the future of our sport”. Nothing in his doughty performance would have dissuaded anyone in Melbourne to believe in Zverev’s wonderful potential and undisputed ability to establish himself as one of the leading lights in men’s tennis for years to come.

But when the Slams roll around, established and seasoned champions tend to find a way to eke out every last drop of experience and nous to navigate the choppy waters presented to them by even the toughest of draws. For Nadal, the dangers of this match-up did not need to be pointed out; the calibre of his opponent blindingly obvious.

For all Zverev’s flashes of brilliance and abundant quality, there was also something glorious about Nadal clinging to the present when confronted with such an obvious figure of the rising new elite on the sport’s biggest stage.

Both Nadal and Federer have not only embraced the fact that their relatively low seedings have presented them with unusually tough encounters in the early stages in Melbourne but positively smiled with relish whenever they have been asked to contemplate the challenges that lay in store.

While Federer’s road to the showpiece final continues to be staggeringly fraught with difficulty – a sequence of Kei Nishikori, Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka would not be on any player’s wish list for opponents – Nadal finds himself in the comparatively benign, Novak Djokovic-free lower-half of the draw.

Having overcome the fiendishly difficult task of beating Zverev, Nadal will certainly fancy his chances of progressing through to the final with the eminently beatable Milos Raonic – still without a Grand Slam title to his name – the highest ranked player in his half of the draw as the third seed.

With Denis Istomin having conquered the world number two in the most unlikely fashion, Nadal will have sensed that another Grand Slam final run is well within his grasp - an unmistakable opportunity, minus the usual burden of expectation.

While the five-set encounter with Zverev will have taken a great deal out of the Spaniard physically and mentally, he has rarely seemed so fresh, so motivated, so abundantly back to his usual ebullient self around the court.

If Nadal can find a way past the wonderfully mercurial Gael Monfils in their fourth-round match, a quarter-final clash with Raonic would likely await. If we indulge in a touch more speculation, the next highest-ranked player the Spaniard would face in the semi-finals would be the eighth-seeded Dominic Thiem.

The 30-year-old may already have 14 Grand Slam titles to his name, but having defied the ‘future of tennis’ and hauled his view of the sport back to the present, he may just find that another final berth beckons in Melbourne.

He may have been somewhat subdued in recent years, but the great Spaniard still has a lot to say about the here and now.