Rafael moves on without Federer
THE SPANIARD had just demolished his Russian teenage opponent in a tidy one hour, 37 minutes, and Rafael Nadal was asked what he would be doing the remainder of Wednesday evening, when Roger Federer and Juan Martin del Potro would square off late that night in their quarterfinal match to determine Nadal’s opponent in the U.S. Open semis.
“I’m gonna be having dinner probably,” said Nadal, before breaking into laughter.
Nadal, 31, made quick work of 19-year-old Andrey Rublev on Arthur Ashe Stadium court Wednesday afternoon – a methodical 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 thumping – where the roof was closed and Rublev couldn’t keep up with Nadal’s turbo-charged forehands or cross-court blasts.
With his semifinal slot confirmed, Nadal then withstood another round of Federer questions in his post-match press conference. Before this year’s Open began, the entire tennis world was abuzz with the possibility of the two elite players – the Spaniard and the Swiss – colliding in the semifinal, a scenario all the more appealing since Nadal and Federer have never met at the Open during their illustrious careers.
“I don’t want to look like I’m gonna be his boyfriend,” Nadal, a two-time Open champion, said in Wednesday’s presser, when asked what he most admired about Federer on and off the court. “We don’t want to talk these kind of things before important match.”
Tennis fans, however, will have to wait as Federer bowed to Juan Martin del Potro, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (8), 6-4.
The Ashe crowd Wednesday was somewhat more vocal than during Nadal’s fourth-round victory, and it was heavily-partisan toward the Spaniard, although one older gentleman sitting about 20 rows up in one corner crowed for Rublev after every point in the third set.
Nadal needed 23 minutes to win the first set, and encountered little resistance all afternoon. He smacked only four aces, but Nadal made just 20 unforced errors to Rublev’s 43. In the third set, Nadal broke Rublev in the fifth game when the Russian, already down 3-1, double-faulted to lose the game. Nadal, on serve for the final game of the match, watched Rublev smack a backhand into the net on match point to end his admirable Open run. SOMEHOW, throughout the epic 14-year rivalry between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the two legends who have met 37 times, including 12 matchups at grandslam tournaments, have never faced each other at the U.S. Open. They appeared to be on a collision course for a semifinal showdown this year, but perhaps it isn’t meant to be.
The local crowd must continue to wait for the dream match in the biggest tennis event in the United States as the third-seeded Federer was upset late Wednesday night in the men’s quarterfinals by No. 24 Juan Martin del Potro, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (10-8,) 6-4.
So it will be del Potro facing Nadal on Friday instead of Federer, who insisted he wasn’t thinking about a potential matchup with Nadal.
“I wasn’t. You were,” Federer said. “I honestly was only thinking about tonight. My head didn’t wander during the match. I knew it was gonna be a tough one. I struggled too much throughout the tournament to think too far ahead. In some ways I’m actually happy I made the quarters.”
There are several moments Federer should look back on in regret from Wednesday’s loss, mainly the four set points he was unable to convert during the third-set tiebreak. He also hit what seemed like an easy overhead smash into the net during the fifth game of the fourth set — some in the crowd putting hands on their faces in response to the error — and del Potro broke Federer in that game to go up 3-2.
“He came up with the goods when he needed to,” Federer said of del Potro. “I helped him out sometimes, maybe.”
Del Potro, who had plenty of