CZECH PLEASE!
Rafa not fooled again
WIMBLEDON − A little over an hour into things on Centre Court Thursday, the world’s No. 1 player was deep into his usual fidgets and routines, tugging here and tucking there, a bundle of Mallorcan nerves. He was also in deep trouble, finding himself − almost inexplicably − heading for the same fate against the same opponent in the same round where his Wimbledon tournament ended two years ago.
But Rafael Nadal did not collect his 14 Grand Slam titles by packing up his racket bags upon the first sight of difficulty. A point away from falling down two sets to Lukas Rosol, the same angular Czech who bounced him here in 2012, Nadal foiled it with a forehand winner, won the ensuing tiebreak on a double fault and soon was on his way to a 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4, 6-4 second-round triumph.
“If it’s two sets up for me, it’s a different story,” said Rosol, 28, the 52nd-ranked player in the world. “I think I’m going to win.”
Nadal didn’t disagree with Rosol’s assessment.
“The difference is maybe one point. But that’s the sport,” Nadal said. “I was fighting for every ball. And revenge had nothing to do with it.
“Today is another history, another story. I needed to find the solution. Finally I did.”
Nadal was preceded on Centre Court by the No. 1-ranked woman, Serena Williams, who did everything but put South Africa’s Chanelle Scheepers through a blender, in a 6-1, 6-1 annihilation.
There was no better escape act on the grounds Thursday than the one pulled off by Australian teenager Nick Kyrgios, a 19-year-old wild card and the youngest player in the men’s draw. Kyrgios, ranked No. 144, fought off nine match points to outlast No. 13 Richard Gasquet of France, 3-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-5, 10-8, moving into the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time.
The Australian Open junior champion just 18 months ago, Kyrgios had never come back from two sets down before.
“At that stage it seemed like a massive hill to climb,” he said. “I stuck in there. It’s my biggest career win, I think.”
His victory took just five minutes longer than the three-hour, 49-minute slugfest between No. 14 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France and Sam Querrey of the U.S., Tsonga prevailing, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (4), 6-3, 14-12, in a match that was halted by darkness Wednesday night at 9-9 in the fifth.
Tsonga pounded 37 aces, Querrey 33, part of the 190 winners between them. Querrey, a 6-6 Californian with a big forehand, was once No. 17 and now stands at No. 67, and was disappointed by the result but heartened by his level of play in one of his best matches of the year. “Missed one too many forehands at the end, and he did a good job closing it out,” said Querrey, whose exit leaves big John Isner, all 6-10 of him, as the lone American man still alive.
Isner blasted 32 aces of his own and was never broken in taking out Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen, 7-6 (17), 7-6 (3), 7-5. The master of the Wimbledon marathon after his historic 70-68 fifth-set victory over Nicholas Mahut four years ago, Isner saved five set points in the first breaker, four of them with aces.
Nadal exited Wimbledon in the first round a year ago, making it two straight early dismissals, and avoided a third with a vintage forehand winner on Rosol’s break point at 5-6 in the tiebreaker. Two points later, Rosol double-faulted to give Nadal the set, and Nadal knew what to do from there, forging an early break in the third on the strength of a ridiculous get, a crosscourt dash that ended a forehand winner.
Roger Federer, the seven-time champ at the All-England Club and the No. 4 seed, dispatched Gilles Muller in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5, 6-3.