Rafa’s relief at 2am tiebreak triumph
RAFAEL NADAL could feel grateful that it is 48 years since the US Open introduced a deciding set tiebreak.
It was already 2.04am and four hours and 49 minutes into the tightest of matches when he finally overcame Dominic Thiem, edging a sudden death shootout to make tomorrow’s semi-finals at Flushing Meadows.
Nadal’s reward for his late-night endeavours is another meeting with Juan Martin del Potro, against whom he played arguably the best match of Wimbledon when they met in the last eight. It was the middle of the night before the Spaniard could head home after beating Thiem 0-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-7, 7-6.
‘It was a great match, great atmosphere and I was happy to be part of it. But not because it’s three in the morning. I am not happy about this,’ he said, managing a smile.
Men’s tennis has not seen as gruelling a fifth set since Kevin Anderson beat John Isner 26- 24 in the Wimbledon semi-final this summer. The residual crowd here felt none of the tedium that could be sensed around Centre Court on that Friday evening in July.
It has focused minds at the All England Club — Anderson was worn out for the final against Novak Djokovic — and a meeting at SW19 later this month is expected to bring in a new rule. The most likely outcome is introducing a 12-12 cut-off. Even that seems excessive but Wimbledon will want to maintain a point of difference with other events and the US Open is still the only major to have a final-set tiebreak.
Another discussion point will concern the roof usage at Wimbledon after the controversy over Nadal’s semi-final against Djokovic. That continued under the roof even when it resumed in decent weather on the Saturday. Sportsmail understands that the rule which forced that to happen will change.
This is the season of high-level meetings in tennis, with Grand Slam chiefs coming together at the US Open this week. Wimbledon will be the most adamant of the four in resisting moves to extend legal coaching during matches, but there is likely to be more agreement on ditching the idea of reducing the number of seeds from 32 to 16.
Meanwhile, Jamie Murray angrily threw his racket to the ground after he and Brazilian partner Bruno Soares last night missed out on the chance to make the semi-finals of the doubles. Despite having shown excellent form, they were upset 7-5, 6-4 by the unseeded pair of Moldova’s Radu Albot and Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri.
But Murray’s mood was lifted later when he reached another US Open mixed doubles final by teaming up with Bethanie Mattek- Sands to beat Christina McHale and Christian Harrison 6-4, 2-6, 10-8.