‘Tower of Tandil’ and Rafa take five-set classics to fresh heights

In Juan Martin del Potro’s home city of Tandil, 200 miles south of Buenos Aires, he’s known as “the Tower of Tandil”. This is hardly surprising given that he looms 6ft 6ins above the baseline. Nicknames, it seems, aren’t any more ingenious elsewhere. But Tandil has a legend which everyone’s favourite Argentinian almost usurped late on Wednesday night. The city’s name is a Mapuche amalgam of “falling” and “rock”. The Piedra Movediza – “Moving Stone” – was a large boulder miraculously poised above

Tandil. Locals claimed it slightly shoogled; visitors scoffed: “You’re having a laugh, senor.” So locals placed glass bottles under the Piedra Movediza and told the visitors to wait and watch them explode, proving that this seemingly immovable object would occasionally stir. And that’s what happened every time – bang!

Still with the Diary? Good, for if you were watching Del Potro’s stupendous quarter-final with Rafael Nadal, you’ll know that he very nearly smashed the Spaniard’s bottles. Rafa likes them all in a row: energy drink, water, sangria, San Miguel and so on. But Delpo could – and probably should – have crushed them. Won the match, that is. Delpo’s too much of a gent to have trampled all over Rafa’s stuff.

The Piedra Movediza split in two in 1912. A replica stone was put in its place but does it move? Wikipedia doesn’t tell the Diary that. Del Potro finally cracked after four hours and 48 minutes. Incredibly, this was exactly the same duration as the 2008 Rafa-roger Federer Wimbledon final everyone’s been eulogising this year.

What makes a tennis match a classic? High quality, ebb and flow, five-sets (if we’re talking hombres), incidental humour, pathos, great sportsmanship, single games of almost excruciating drama, players crashing into the crowd, players nose-to-the-turf being able to confirm that 8mm grass height while reflecting on a diving winner or desperately bad luck. Rafa vs Del-

po had all of that and Andy Murray, the Diary’s new best favourite commentator, declared the concluding chapter of 6-4 to Rafa the best set he’d ever witnessed.

Some would say the five-setters Murray and Del Potro fought out in 2016 (Olympic final, Davis Cup) deserve consideration among the greatest of recent times and the Diary wouldn’t disagree. It also – showing its age but, really, you should have been there – spools back through the years to remember 1977. “No Elvis, Beatles and the Moving Stones,” the

Clash almost sang, “in 1977”. But there was Vitas Gerulaitis that year and his Wimbledon semi-final with Bjorn Borg was the Diary’s first, great epic, at times so tense it had to go for a walk or invite its little brother to be thrashed at Buckaroo!

Then there was Borg vs John Mcenroe in the 1980 final and of course Rafa vs Rog, fantastic matches for sure, but right at this moment the Diary can’t see past Wednesday night. “We played great points, we run a lot, we did I think a good, good match,” said the Tower of Tandil.