Zverev’s pain is Nadal’s gain
Horrible ankle injury during semi-final KOs German and gifts Nadal final spot
ALEX ZVEREV was forced to retire from his French Open semi-final against Rafa Nadal yesterday after dramatically rolling his ankle and leaving court in a wheelchair. Trailing by a set and with a tiebreak looming in the second, the German fell heavily while sprinting to return a forehand from Nadal — screaming out in pain before being taken off the court by medical staff for treatment. Zverev, 25, returned on crutches to tell the umpire he would be unable to continue, sending Nadal through to tomorrow’s final where he will attempt to win his 14th Roland Garros title.
RAFAEL NADAL has reached 14 French Open finals, but never amid such scenes as his opponent being taken off court in a wheelchair.
An already unusual encounter with Alex Zverev came to a distressing end when the world No3 went over on his ankle at a sickening angle while trying to hit a forehand from the corner of Court Philippe Chatrier.
The arena looked on in stunned silence as the German screamed in agony and several officials — as well as Nadal — rushed to his aid.
And while he was taken to hospital for scans, Nadal headed into a stage of the tournament at which he has never been beaten via an official scoreline of 7-6, 6-6.
Nadal now meets Norway’s world No 8 Casper Ruud, who saw off Croat veteran Marin Cilic 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 in a match interrupted by a climate change protester who chained herself to the net.
The Spaniard will need no introduction to the 23-year-old, who spent time training at his academy in Mallorca as a teenager.
The fact is that by Sunday night he is likely to be on 22 Grand Slam titles, two ahead of Novak Djokovic and the barely active Roger Federer. If there is any irony from yesterday’s distressing denouement it is that most of this fortnight’s fears have surrounded Nadal’s own fitness, with him only getting this far on a diet of constant treatment and, reportedly, painkilling injections.
The state of his left foot is said to be extremely perilous — Nadal said after this that he would ‘prefer to lose Sunday’s final and get a new foot’ — but there were again precious few outward signs of that.
Nadal is a master of lowering expectations and has once again confounded his pre-Paris gloom. After the Italian Open he was extremely downbeat about the bone problems in his foot, but here he is again, in the final.
‘After Rome I was not very positive, but I was positive that I will be able to play here,’ he said. ‘I played, I fought, I did all the things possible to give myself at least a chance to be where I am. So that means a lot to me. All the sacrifices and the things I need to go through to try to keep playing, they really make sense when you enjoy moments like here.’ He had not enjoyed seeing Zverev crying in the physio room immediately after the match.
The German was still able to return to the court, dramatically, on crutches to shake hands with the umpire and formally concede. He was given a deafening ovation as he waved one of his sticks to the crowd before leaving.
It seems safe to assume that he will not be at Wimbledon and the same is likely to be true for Nadal, although his representative denied any decision has yet been made.
When the incident happened, just in front of the courtside box in which British actress Sienna Miller was sitting, there were already more than three hours on the clock, with the match having been played under the roof due to afternoon downpours in Paris.
The associated humidity made conditions deathly slow and the speed of the match was not helped by umpire Renaud Lichtenstein being hugely lenient with the use of the shot clock between points.
‘The conditions have been the slowest I played in a long time,’ said Nadal. ‘The ball was super big and difficult to create spin, I could not create any damage.’ Although nobody would have wished Zverev’s fate upon him, he probably saved tournament organisers from even more questions about the controversial scheduling of this event.
They did not start the match until past 3pm and at the rate it was going before the German’s accident it looked possible that it would have gone on for several hours more, pushing Ruud and Cilic’s clash deeper into the night.
The length of the rallies between Nadal and Zverev, with both of these supreme counter-punchers struggling to penetrate the other, made some contribution to that.
Zverev was playing to his outer limits, with one rally having lasted 44 strokes in a chaotic second set.
Neither player had been finding holding serve easy and there were five breaks of serve each in a match which could have tilted either way. Djokovic, beaten on Tuesday, would have loved a pop at the Nadal we saw in the second set.
That was in contrast to the way he finished the opener, which saw Nadal come back from 6-2 down in the tiebreak. From 6-4, winner after winner was reeled off as he took it 10-8, before the 91-minute duration took its toll on both men.