A PAINFUL EXIT
Sport has transformed into a survival of fittest
THIS isn’t your ancestors’ game of lawn tennis and this isn’t the U.S. Open on the grass courts of Forest Hills. For as great as they all were back in the day — and you can pick the day, any day — the sport has evolved into a grueling, punishing, physical test, with this tournament the epitome of the game’s evolution.
The Grand Slam cycle has become an obstacle course, as much about endurance and attrition as talent. Australia, Roland Garros and Wimbledon present their own unique challenges, but New York, the final major, is an island unto itself.
The Open is the tournament with matches ending as late as 2:26 in the morning. The Open is the one that takes place in unpredictable and increasingly severe climes. It’s the one with retractable roofs on Armstrong and Ashe that allow play to continue regardless of rain, sleet or snow but chokes off the air flow on courts that come to resemble saunas for much of the fortnight.
It is an exercise in survival of the fittest.
Four days after the stifling heat claimed Roger Federer as a fourth-round victim, Rafael Nadal was forced to retire in his semifinal match against Juan Martin del Potro, 7-6, 6-2 (ret), after a flaring case of his right knee tendinitis reduced the Spaniard to spectator status for most of the second set.
“That was not a tennis match at the end, no?” said Nadal, whose knee received minor treatment and a wrap following the seventh game of the first set and the third game of the second set. “It was just one player playing, the other staying on the other side of the court.
“I waited as much as I can. You can imagine [that it is] very difficult for me to say goodbye before the match finishes. But at some point you have to make a decision.” Neither Nadal nor del Potro — who advanced to his first Slam final since winning this tournament in 2009 — approached top form during the truncated match for more than a contested point, or two. Nadal said that he felt pain at 2-all in the first set and knew he was in for trouble.
But trouble in this one seemed predetermined by the length of time the world’s No. 1 was kept on the court in his five-set, tiebreaker quarterfinal victory over Dominic Thiem late Tuesday/ early Wednesday. That one lasted 4:49. A previous victory over Nikoloz Basilashvili lasted 4:23.
A year ago in this same semifinal matchup, del Potro was coming off an enervating four-set quarterfinal victory over Federer that followed a five-set triumph over Thiem in which the Argentinian had fallen into a 1-6, 2-6 hole. Predictably, del Potro collapsed after taking the first set and lost in four to Nadal. This represented a reversal of fortune.
Ego is required to become No. 1, and to reclaim the No. 1 ranking at the age of 32. Nadal, who has never dabbled in false modesty, wouldn’t quite admit that his previous matches had taken a toll on him. If preeminent athletes are not necessarily the last to know, they are often the last to acknowledge vulnerability.
“Maybe zero, maybe yes. You never know,” he said. “[But] I was not feeling worst of my knee before the match or [Friday] when I practiced.”
The roster of big time players who have been forced to miss Grand Slam events over the last five or six years has come to resemble the Mets’ disabled list. Federer has had down time. Andy Murray, sidelined with hip and back issues, missed four straight Grand Slams starting with last year’s Open before his appearance here ended with a second round defeat. Novak Djokovic, who advanced to the final with a lopsided, straightsets victory over Kei Nishikori in Friday’s second semifinal,emifinal, missed last year’s Open following elbow surgery.
And of course, there is del Potro, who missed nine consecutive majors from the French in 2014 through the French in 2016 while dealing with four wrist surgeries following his 2009 Open championship. From the peak of his game to the precipice of the end of a career. Jacoby Ellsbury, anyone? Well, no.
Nadal was asked about the increasingly taxing demands of the tour in the context of marquee players missing majors. He brushed it aside, insisting, “[It] is not fair to compare myself to them. It is not a real comparison.”
“It is part of the game,” he said. “I can’t and will not complain.”
It is part of the new, physical, grueling game of tennis that is not going away.