Opinion: Should There Be A Masters 1000 On Grass?

By Owen Lewis

There are nine Masters 1000s on tour, beginning with the prestigious Indian Wells tournament in California and ending partway across the globe on the indoor hard courts in Paris. Though the circuit is comprised of three different surfaces, all Masters 1000s take place on either hard courts or clay.

Wimbledon, the third major of the year, is a grass court tournament. Majors are the most important events on the tennis circuit (worth 2000 points each). So why are there no Masters 1000s on grass?

The most immediate answer is cost. Grass courts are simply more expensive to maintain than the other surfaces. It is also a difficult, lengthy process to construct a grass court, which likely incentivized the Masters 1000s to instead hold their tournaments on the other surfaces. In 2007, an exhibition between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal (who at the time were dominating grass and clay, respectively) was played on an unconventional hybrid court, made up of both clay and grass. Over 1.6 million dollars was spent on its construction, and the process stretched on for 19 days. Not surprisingly, new grass courts are rarely built.

The hefty expenses of constructing grass courts is unfortunate, because a Masters 1000 on the surface could help bring more balance to the tour. Hard courts are the predominant surface, but clay still makes up a greater portion of the circuit than grass. There are three Masters 1000s on clay, providing a steady buildup to Roland-Garros (the clay court major) in May. Before Wimbledon, there are two smaller tournaments on grass that some of the top players will participate in (Halle and Stuttgart), but several players each year will elect not to play either, instead opting to practice with a hitting partner or coach.

A Masters 1000 on grass would likely incentivize more players to take part in a lead-up tournament to Wimbledon, driven by the increased points at stake and a greater chance to play themselves into form against strong players. Not only that, but it would make the Masters 1000s’ level more representative of the majors’ level, representing all three surfaces that the biggest tournaments are played on (this would still be an unequal representation, but it would be a step closer to it than the current makeup).

This relates to the often all-consuming G.O.A.T. debate for many. Federer’s most successful major has been Wimbledon; he’s won a men’s record of eight titles on London’s lawns. He has 20 majors to Nadal’s 19 and Novak Djokovic’s 17, yet trails both in Masters 1000 titles (he has 28, Djokovic has 34, and Nadal has 35). Part of this is due to the fact that Federer skipped several Masters 1000s in his prime, but some argue, not unreasonably, that Federer would have more titles if one of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments were on grass.

While hypotheticals are shaky ground for any argument, it is hard to imagine that Federer wouldn’t have a handful of titles from a Masters 1000 on grass, given his eight Wimbledon victories and ten titles in Halle. Blaming the structure of the tour isn’t a sufficient justification for Federer’s lower tally of Masters 1000s, but there doesn’t seem to be a good reason besides cost for the lack of a tournament at that level on grass.

Grass is the preferred surface for very few ATP players these days, yet implementing a new Masters 1000 might not only allow for more players to be in-form for Wimbledon, it could give way to more athletes mastering the grass.

There’s no way around this; the tour is probably overstuffed already. For many, the offseason gets shorter and shorter each year, and injuries are frequent on the circuit. So if a Masters 1000 were on grass, a tournament would surely have to go.

A good candidate is the Paris, the final Masters 1000 of the year. Thanks to the aforementioned and crammed tennis schedule, many players are worn down by the time Paris rolls around. The final hasn’t been contested by two seeded players (Paris has 16 seeds) since 2015. Placing a Masters 1000 on grass before Wimbledon and using the empty Paris slot to better space out the remaining tournaments could help alleviate the grind of the tour while also bringing a better balance to its surface distribution.

Changing the format and placement of Masters 1000 tournaments is not unprecedented. In 2007, the Shanghai Masters was established, bumping the previous owner of the calendar slot (an indoor tournament in Madrid) to the clay season. The Tennis Masters Cup became the World Tour Finals as a result of this change, showing that tournament mobility is very possible. Shanghai is also an outdoor tournament, displaying a switch from the indoor conditions of Madrid. Granted, a change from hard courts to grass would be much more expensive.

Bringing a Masters 1000 on grass to the tennis circuit offers many positives and few negatives (sorry, fans of the Paris Masters). Yet it’s unlikely that the change will be made, at least in the near future. The cost of grass courts alone is enough to dissuade many from the proposal, and there would inevitably be pushback from the tournament that the new Masters 1000 would displace. Still, the tour should always be looking for ways to improve, as its players do, and adding a Masters 1000 on grass to the calendar would be a step in the right direction.

Thanks for reading! If you have questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment or tweet @tennisnation.

The Intriguing Djokovic-Federer Rivalry

By Owen Lewis

Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are two of the greatest tennis players of all time. They have 37 major titles between them, and their prolific rivalry is second on the men’s side in terms of volume of matches (Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have played more).

They weave fascinating patterns when playing, with Federer often trying to work his way to the net and using his slice to keep Djokovic off balance, while Djokovic attempts to attack Federer’s weaker backhand wing and engage in sapping baseline rallies. The latter strategy has proved to be slightly more successful, as Djokovic leads the rivalry 27-23.

Behind these numbers lie extremely close contests and remarkable statistics. Djokovic leads their rivalry in majors 11-6, and has won three matches from double match point down, including the 2019 Wimbledon final. Federer won four of their first five meetings on the biggest stage, but since then the story of the rivalry in majors has been Djokovic claiming the biggest points and the matches.

Federer, despite earning more break point chances, has actually broken less often than Djokovic when they clash in a major. Djokovic has made the most of more of his opportunities, as he did at the 2015 U.S. Open final: converting six of 13 break points to Federer’s four of 23.

Though Federer is more than five years older than Djokovic, he has remained competitive in their matches. He has won at least a set in all but three of their meetings in majors, and actually leads the rivalry in best-of-three contests: 17-16.

The rivalry is very close across all three surfaces. Djokovic leads 3-1 on grass and 20-18 on hard courts, and they are tied 4-4 on clay. However, Djokovic has a 13-6 edge in tournament finals. He is, as reflected by the break point statistics above, better in pressured situations than Federer, and is an excellent big match player as well.

Djokovic can execute his desired strategy in big moments more reliably and effectively than Federer. In the 2019 Wimbledon final, Djokovic won three tiebreaks, during which many baseline exchanges took place. Such patterns allow Djokovic to take control of points with his pace redirection and safe yet penetrating groundstrokes, and expose Federer’s fragile backhand.

Above: consecutive points from the crucial third-set tiebreak in Novak Djokovic’s 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3) win over Roger Federer in the 2019 Wimbledon final. Note the placement of Djokovic’s shots in the second point; while they are aggressive enough to take control of the point, they are relatively safe in that they’re not particularly close to the lines. Djokovic’s ability to play points in this manner has been instrumental in him dominating his recent tiebreaks with Federer.

Federer is long past his prime, while Djokovic is yet to decline as much. The latter has dominated the second phase of the rivalry, boasting a 21-10 record against Federer since the start of 2011. This is likely due to a combination of Djokovic ascending to his best form and Federer’s age-related decline, as well as Djokovic establishing his superiority on big points.

A recent trend in the rivalry is Djokovic’s winning streak in tiebreaks. He has won the last six, beginning with a tight breaker in the first set of his 2018 Paris semifinal with Federer. Djokovic saved a set point on his way to winning the tiebreak 8-6, and since has lost just 16 points in the next five breakers. In the last four, he has made zero unforced errors.

Federer’s game is higher-risk than Djokovic’s. With Djokovic refusing to make an unforced error in their tiebreaks, all the pressure falls on Federer to win points with winners or by forcing errors. At the 2020 Australian Open, Djokovic won a first-set tiebreak 7-1, with Federer striking a forehand winner to score his lone point. With Federer’s margin for error in tiebreaks being virtually nonexistent, his best hope to win sets against Djokovic is before the score gets to 6-all.

As is the case in virtually all rivalries, the winner of the first set sees their chances to win the match vastly increase. But the opening frame is much more important to Federer than it is to Djokovic. The leader in the rivalry has beaten Federer from a set down seven times, including twice in majors, while Federer has gotten the best of Djokovic after losing the first set just once: in 2014.

Even before 2011, the year in which Djokovic rose to the peak of his powers and began to turn around the rivalry, Djokovic had beaten Federer from a set down three times, including in the semifinals of the 2010 U.S. Open. Federer’s skills as a frontrunner are often spoken of, but in this matchup it’s Djokovic who is tougher to beat from a set down. Since Federer’s comeback win in the 2014 Dubai final (he won 3-6, 6-3, 6-2) seems to be something of a one-off, Federer virtually needs to take the first set in his matches with Djokovic to win the match.

With Federer standing at 38 years old and recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery, it’s unlikely that he will rebound from his deficit in the rivalry. But if he is to, he has to be very opportunistic. His challenges are more mental than physical; Federer managed to play for four hours and 56 minutes last year in the Wimbledon final, keeping the match very close. Yet he consistently loses most of the big points when he plays Djokovic, and losing the first set against him is practically a death warrant to Federer’s chances of winning the match.

As for Djokovic, if he continues to win the lion’s share of the big points against Federer, he will continue to win most of their matches. He can even afford lapses, such as the second set of the 2019 Wimbledon final, as long as he is sharp in important moments.

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Opinion: The Privilege of Tennis Analysts

By Owen Lewis

A tennis court is 78 feet long, and 27 feet wide between the singles lines. My keyboard is perhaps a foot long and six inches wide. The keys are squares, with the sides measuring less than an inch. My fingers don’t have to move far to tap out words, sentences, or paragraphs. If I screw up, there’s a backspace key. If I have writer’s block, am tired, or don’t feel like writing, I can take a break.

And I have the audacity to write pieces on this smallish machine (a laptop) that critique the shots, matches, and playing styles of professional tennis players.

There are approximately 7.8 billion people on the planet. A tiny fraction, far less than 1%, are tennis players. Another miniscule portion of that group plays tennis well enough to make a career out of it. And most of that select group will never reach the top ten or win a big title. But pundits don’t often write about the efforts of the lower-ranked players. Most tennis writing is about the handful of players whose accomplishments have raised them into the vault of immortality.

And yet, if one of these legends struggles with their game, has a streak of less-than-perfect results, or gets injured, we tennis analysts get to work with pieces announcing their downfall. While sweat flies off the players’ bodies with their supreme effort, many writers prefer to find a comfortable seat before beginning their work. As serves land directly on lines, pundits point out an untimely double fault, daring to call it an “unforced error”. Most of the winners struck by the players go undescribed, reduced instead to numbers hastily thrown in an article.

The pressure got to them, writers will type, knowing full well that they themselves will probably never come close to facing such a nerve-racking situation. The efforts of some of the best players in the world are diminished as analysts readily produce numbers that show rivals have outperformed them.

Why are these outstanding athletes’ heroics often greeted by callous, cynical writing?

For one thing, analyzing is easier than playing. To produce a brilliant tennis point, both players have to strike the ball cleanly, move well, and create angles that draw gasps from the crowd. And that sentence doesn’t come close to detailing how hard it is to hit cleanly when the ball’s diameter is barely two and a half inches, most racket heads are less than 110 square inches, and a distance of many yards often has to be covered before a player has even the chance to make a solid swing at the ball. Then there’s the issue of the power, direction, and spin that a shot carries.

To analyze or report on tennis, all one needs is a decent understanding of the rules, a couple matches under their belt (watching or playing), and a serviceable vocabulary. To play tennis well, one must be extremely fit, both strength-wise to have the power to hit winners, and endurance-wise to stay competitive in long, physical matches. They need good hand-eye coordination, speed, mental steadiness in big moments…the list goes on.

Alexander Zverev, the world number seven on the ATP Tour, temporarily solved his problems with his serve at this year’s Australian Open, citing hours of practice daily as the solution. It’s evident that writing about Zverev’s practices doesn’t even require a fraction of the effort that practicing tennis does. It’s so easy to summarize what Zverev did: he practiced his serve for hours at a time until the double faults that plagued him in 2019 started to become less frequent.

Yet for Zverev, his actions required tremendous effort, tossing a ball over and over until he found a spot that seemed comfortable, trying to force himself to jump up to meet the toss in the hot Melbourne sun. He probably pressed through muscle soreness and mental fatigue, fighting to fix the weakness in his game in time for his first round match.

Zverev made his deepest run yet at a major this January, making the semifinals of the Australian Open before losing a close four-setter to Dominic Thiem. He hit few double faults along the way, and in my summary of how he performed at the event lies the wide gulf in terms of difficulty between writing and playing.

Why, then, is the incredible will and skill of professional tennis players not mentioned more often? A passive sentence or two might be dedicated to the quality of a match or even a spectacular winner, but much of tennis analysis focuses on what players could have done better, or should have done better. They weren’t at their best, critics will lament of a losing player. But who is anyone except a professional tennis player to say this? It strikes me as hypocritical, and my criticizing this is of course hypocritical as well as I’ve done the same thing.

Does deserved praise of a player erode interest in a piece? Tennis is a sport that turns on the big points, and so analysis of those moments is possibly in higher demand than acclaiming the skills of the athletes.

Perhaps a positive style of writing takes away from the effectiveness of analysis. But it can be hard to compliment a ghastly unforced error (I know, I’m a hypocrite, but I’ve already admitted to that). Saying “Player X shanks a forehand” seems too simple, while “Player X gets unlucky and mishits a forehand” seems too generous and could be untrue. Finding middle ground at first sounds appropriate: “Possibly taken ahold of by nerves, Player X shanks a forehand”, but to attempt to justify every single miss a player makes is repetitive and would be nothing short of tedious reading for most fans.

When a player strikes a backhand down the line, redirecting a fierce crosscourt shot with the perfect mixture of spin and pace to land the ball right in the corner, past the reach of the opponent, often writers will summarize with “Player Y hits a backhand winner down the line”. This doesn’t seem to do justice to the difficulty of the winner in the slightest. Given that describing incredible athletic feats can’t be nearly as hard as performing them, one would think tennis writers have it somewhat easy, but much of the time they fail to accurately describe the sporting excellence.

There is no backspace key on the tennis court. It is a sport with smaller margin for error than perhaps any other. But one wouldn’t always know this from reading about the sport, and this seems like a big missed opportunity to capture the magic of the game. Players need to keep their emotions in check on break point in front of a packed crowd. Getting out of a sticky situation with a winner or proactive play could be the dictionary definition of grace under pressure.

Sports weren’t invented to be described in the written word. But much of tennis writing lacks the lyrical, dramatic energy that live matches can produce. If players can summon shots that defy belief and logic, and hit the lines when the pressure is at its highest, the least writers can do is find prose that captures as much of the essence of these awe-inspiring moments as possible.

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What Makes a Tennis Match Great?

By Owen Lewis

In the gallery of epic tennis matches lie contests of diverse length, competitiveness, and quality. The Nadal-Federer 2008 Wimbledon final is renowned for not just the eye-popping winners, but for the two rain delays that extended the match, the fact that it ended in darkness, and the historical significance. The men’s 2012 Australian Open final redefined the limits of physical endurance in tennis as Novak Djokovic overcame exhaustion and Rafael Nadal to win an impossibly attritional five-hour, 53-minute battle. The 2018 Australian Open semifinal between Simona Halep and Angelique Kerber is of legendary status for its third set, a frame of heavenly quality in which both players saved a pair of match points before Halep edged out her rival.

What do these classics have in common? The first answer that comes to mind is that they are all extremely close, with the results hinging on one or two key points. But this criterion could also apply to a match in which errors were made on every point. The quality of the tennis is crucial, not just in terms of how many winners were hit but relating to rally intensity as well. In the Halep-Kerber semifinal, there was one more unforced error than winner between the players, but such was the length and intensity of the exchanges that this stat loses a lot of weight.

Some prefer the first-strike tennis that is seen frequently at Wimbledon, while others are partial to the longer rallies that Roland-Garros gives way to, so in that sense quality can be subjective.

A strange commonality between many fantastic matches are small chokes. At first this seems ridiculous, as a choke is a dip in level, but often times a lapse from one player will spark a spirited comeback by the other. The aforementioned 2008 Wimbledon final and 2012 Australian Open final both featured mini-chokes by the eventual winner that greatly increased the overall quality of the match. In the former, Nadal led two sets to one and 5-2 in the fourth-set tiebreak but made consecutive errors on serve, allowing Federer to get a foothold in the breaker. While the two points were lost on unforced mistakes, it lengthened the tiebreak, allowing the Center Court crowd to witness perhaps the finest ever back-to-back passing shots a few minutes later, as well as an absorbing fifth set. Djokovic led the 2012 final in Melbourne two sets to one and held a 5-3 advantage in the tiebreak, but made three forehand unforced errors that helped Nadal win the fourth set. A minor choke, yes, yet it allowed an 80-minute fifth set that made the match the longest major final ever. The Halep-Kerber semifinal saw both players make an unforced error on match point in a game that they would end up losing, but this contributed to the drama and the length of the third set. Naomi Osaka and Petra Kvitová clashed for possession of the 2019 Australian Open title, and Osaka had three championship points in the second set, yet couldn’t take any, failed to serve out the match, and lost the frame. Yet she rebounded to win the third, thereby making the final an example of her mental fortitude.

Another feature of great contests is a simultaneously high level of play from the participants. The 2019 Wimbledon final between Djokovic and Federer saw Djokovic lapse significantly in the second and fourth sets, while Federer was unable to find his best level in the three tiebreaks that took place during the final. While there was some high-quality play from both, the unevenly strong tennis was significant enough that this match is generally not considered one of the best ever, though it did take nearly five hours to crown a winner.

Most matches heralded as the best ever contain at least one legend of the game, often two. This is partly because the strongest players are the most capable of producing high-quality tennis, and partly because matches with lower-ranked players get less attention from fans and pundits. Yet having two all-time greats isn’t a requirement for a spectacle. Fernando Verdasco, an ATP player that has never made it inside the top five, took part in one of the finest matches ever, a 2009 Australian Open semifinal with Nadal (Nadal’s presence in many of the best men’s contests deserves a mention, his capacity to play epic matches is probably unparalleled on the ATP). Verdasco went for broke from the outset, clocking 95 winners across a five-hour, 14-minute battle that saw several amazing rallies (he would end up losing 6-4 in the fifth. The performance was likely his finest). Anyone can take part in an epic; it depends on level of play, not status.

The atmosphere and crowd at a match can contribute to its place in the history books. While both are unrelated to the forehands and backhands struck by the athletes, crowd support can energize a player. The 2001 Wimbledon final between Pat Rafter and Goran Ivanišević is known as “People’s Monday”. An excellent match in its own right, the final was bolstered by the buzzing crowd, many of them Croatian or Australian and ecstatic to see their man in the Wimbledon final. The five-set battle is also remembered for Ivanišević’s improbable triumph; he entered the tournament courtesy of a wild card and was ranked outside the top 100.

A great tennis match defines a variety of contests, and has many criteria, yet failing to meet one or two doesn’t often disqualify a match from being great. There have been epics of myriad types in the past, and there will surely be many more in the future.

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The Difference Between a Missed Opportunity and a Choke in Tennis

By Owen Lewis

In just about every tennis match, the loser fails to take advantage of at least one opportunity, be it a set point, a break point, or even a game point. A “choke” has definitions ranging from losing after being ahead to simply performing badly under pressure. In tennis terms, choking is defined somewhere in between these two accounts. To choke a point, game, set, or match, one first typically has to be in a winning position in those periods, and then perform badly.

At the 2019 Australian Open, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal contested the men’s final. Djokovic dominated the match, winning 6-3, 6-2, 6-3. Nadal had just one break point in the rout, which he failed to take. This was a missed opportunity (and not a particularly big one; he was already two sets and a break down when the chance came), but not a choke, as he was never in an advantageous position.

At the same tournament, Serena Williams faced off against Karolína Plíšková in the quarterfinals. Williams took a 5-1 lead in the decisive third set, and earned yet spurned four match points before losing the set 7-5 (and the match). This is a choke. Williams not only had what is often an insurmountable lead, she also had four chances to win the match, on some of which she made unforced errors.

Chokes can come in many forms. Losing a best-of-five match from two sets up or a best-of-three match from a set and a break up is generally considered a choke. Having match point and losing anyway is often an example of choking, but it isn’t always. At the 2010 U.S. Open, Djokovic and Roger Federer played in the semifinals. Federer had two match points returning at 5-4 up in the fifth, and Djokovic saved both with winners, going on to defeat his rival. Therefore, Federer did not choke away the match points. He did have a two-sets-to-one lead, so if there was a choke in the semifinal, it was Federer losing his lead, not missing out on two match points.

In 2017, Juan Martín del Potro came back from 1-6, 2-6 down to beat Dominic Thiem in the fourth round of the U.S. Open. Thiem had two match points on the return late in the fourth set, but del Potro erased both with aces. Thiem’s choke was losing his two-set lead and failing to win the fourth set after serving at 5-3, 30-love. When talking about this match colloquially, it is correct to say “Thiem choked away a two-set lead”, but it is incorrect to summarize the match with “Thiem choked away two match points”.

Missed opportunities are far more common than chokes. A wonderful aspect of tennis is that in many matches even the winner has failed to capitalize on a chance, which, in combination with the loser’s spurned opportunities, provide the basis for “what ifs” and analysis of the key moments. For example,

The main conversations surrounding the 2019 Wimbledon final between Djokovic and Federer are about Federer missing two match points on serve and Djokovic winning a trio of tiebreaks, and it’s forgotten by many that Djokovic saved a set point in the third with a service winner, Federer saved three break points on his way to holding for 2-all in the fifth (the third with an ace), and that Djokovic hit a diving winner at 5-all, 15-30 in the decider. Each player missed small opportunities throughout the match, but those are overshadowed by the higher-profile chokes.

Chokes are often related to nerves as a player nears winning a match. Missed opportunities can be because of the opponent’s clutch tennis, while a choke almost always involves untimely unforced errors. If a player has match point in hand, the opponent might crush a winner or play passively, waiting to be gifted the point courtesy of an unforced error. For the player in the lead, both examples are missed opportunities, but only the latter is a choke.

Tennis’s scoring system is practically designed to force athletes to play well after missing an opportunity. There is no pause in play when someone loses a lead or fails to break. Still, chokes are much more difficult to rebound from. Guillermo Coria had two championship points, on serve, in the fifth set of the 2004 French Open final (he had previously held a two-set lead). He lost both points and the match, and struggled to reproduce the tennis that carried him to the desperately close final after the tournament.

Some missed opportunities are bizarre. At the 2018 Australian Open, Simona Halep and Angelique Kerber battled in the semifinals, producing one of the year’s best matches. Halep won narrowly: 6-4, 3-6, 9-7. A remarkable statistic is that Kerber converted every one of her seven break point chances (Halep broke nine times and had 22 chances), yet she failed to capitalize on two match points on her own serve. Even when a player is incredibly opportunistic in one area, coming up short in another can still cost them the match.

Chokes and missed opportunities are as much a part of tennis as backhands and drop shots, and they can be as different as forehands are from overhead smashes.

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, please leave a comment or tweet @tennisnation. Be safe and remember to wear a mask and distance when in public!

When Will Dominic Thiem Win His First Major Title?

By Owen Lewis

Dominic Thiem is one of the most powerful players on tour (if you don’t believe me, watch this video). His forehand is among the best on the ATP tour, his one-handed backhand can produce thunderbolts down the line, his serve is a big asset more often than not, and he is fit. And yet, like every other active male player under 30, he is without a major title.

During the fourth set of the 2020 Australian Open final, Thiem had a two-sets-to-one lead and held break point at 1-all. A clinical Novak Djokovic volley erased the opportunity, and seventy-five minutes later Djokovic raised his arms skyward as the Melbourne crowd roared their appreciation for his record eighth Australian Open title.

Thiem had lost his third Grand Slam final — out of three. Though he is yet to win any of the four biggest tournaments on tour, the 26-year-old Austrian has accomplished a lot, including winning the prestigious Indian Wells title (he beat Roger Federer from a set down in the final). He has defeated each of the Big Three multiple times, boasting a combined 14-18 record against Djokovic, Federer, and Rafael Nadal (this is much more impressive than it may look, the Big Three are considered to be the best male players of all time). Yet glory at the highest level has eluded Thiem. Along with his five-set defeat at the hands of Djokovic in this year’s Australian Open final, Nadal has beaten him in the last two French Open finals for the loss of just one set.

Thiem is considered by many to be the most likely player to break the Big Three’s streak of 13 consecutive majors, but this perception could shift quickly. After the U.S. Open last year, Daniil Medvedev’s run to the final and his performance against Nadal in the championship match earned him that position in the eyes of several pundits and fans. But after losing in the first round of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2019, Thiem played several impressive matches at the World Tour Finals, beating both Federer and Djokovic (this match was extremely close and one of the year’s best. Thiem hit a whopping 49 winners, no small feat against Djokovic). He then beat Nadal in a close four-set quarterfinal at the 2020 Australian Open, helping push him ahead of his NextGen rivals.

From this résumé, it seems almost inevitable that Thiem will win a major within a year or two. But the Austrian will have to overcome some hurdles first. When it comes to closing out big matches, he is often shaky at best. He beat Djokovic in the semifinals of the 2019 French Open, but failed to serve out the match from 5-3, 40-15 up (he ended up winning the set 7-5). And at the end of his Australian Open quarterfinal with Nadal, Thiem made multiple unforced errors when serving for the match, then missed a short forehand at 6-4 up in the fourth set tiebreak. Yet it’s important to note that he did hold his nerve to some extend, managing to win both matches.

Thiem also lacks consistency at the majors. While he has made the last two finals at the French Open and was runner-up at the 2020 Australian Open, in 2019 he made it past the second round of a slam just once. He owns a Masters 1000 title, but hasn’t yet been able to capture one on the surface he’s been a factor on for the longest: clay.

Finally, though his game is fairly complete, his return is not up to the standard of his other shots. Though he finished 2019 ranked 5th, he was 16th in second serve return points won and just 22nd in first serve return points won during that year.

The Austrian has ascended to number three in the ATP rankings, but in all likelihood he will have to overcome Nadal and/or Djokovic to win his first major. After beating Djokovic at the 2019 French Open, Nadal, then an 11-time champion at the event, was waiting for him in the final (Thiem lost 3-6, 7-5, 1-6, 1-6). If Djokovic and Nadal can maintain their impressive form, Thiem could conceivably have to wait for their decline before winning his first major.

When the tour resumes, Thiem will likely play both Roland-Garros and the U.S. Open (assuming they take place, which they are expected to) in an effort to claim his first major title.

Now for a prediction: I fully expect Thiem to win a major by the end of 2021 (assuming all four slams take place). That being said, his window is smaller than some realize. He will turn 27 on September 3rd, and it’s clear that the old guard isn’t finished yet. If he can’t make the crucial breakthrough soon, he could go down as one of the “LostGen” (a group including Grigor Dimitrov, Milos Raonic, and Kei Nishikori that was expected to take over men’s tennis but ended up going slamless thanks in part to the incredible longevity of the Big Three).

Thanks for reading! If you have questions don’t hesitate to leave a comment or tweet @tennisnation. Be safe and remember to wear a mask and social distance when out!

The Adria Tour Was Born From Good Intentions, but COVID-19 Doesn’t Care

By Owen Lewis

There’s a proverb: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” While the proverb is certainly harsher than the takeaways from the Adria Tour, the recent cases of COVID-19 that have struck ATP players are a powerful reminder that good intentions, if not executed well, don’t equate to good results and can lead to a bad outcome.

A mere ten days after the first match of the Adria Tour, world number one Novak Djokovic’s brainchild lay in tatters. Grigor Dimitrov, a participant in the tournament, announced yesterday that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Borna Ćorić, another member of the field, made an identical announcement soon after, and Djokovic has also tested positive along with his wife, Jelena. Victor Troicki, who also took part in the tournament, and his pregnant wife have tested positive as well, as has Djokovic’s fitness coach, Marco Panichi. A purpose of the Adria Tour was to donate proceeds to charities across Serbia — a worthy and noble goal — but in taking place, the Adria Tour has seen many people exposed to COVID-19.

With any luck, Dimitrov, Djokovic, and Ćorić (all fit, strong athletes under the age of 35) will make full recoveries. But another pressing concern is those who were in close contact with those players, undoubtedly of varying financial and health status. The mortality rate of COVID-19 is low, but even in asymptomatic cases, the virus can leave a lasting negative effect on carriers’ lungs.

Serbia, the first destination of the Adria Tour (it had moved on to Croatia when the aforementioned COVID-19 cases were announced), has handled the coronavirus outbreak better than most countries. A mere 18 new cases were recorded on June 1st (since, cases have gone up; from June 16th to June 21st over 90 new cases were recorded each day). As a result of the lessening impact of the COVID-19 on the country, the Adria Tour was given clearance to take place, however it was recommended that people distance themselves from each other by one meter or more.

It is not an exaggeration to say that players of the Adria Tour completely ignored this recommendation. From the outset, athletes hugged and shook hands after matches and took large group photos shoulder-to-shoulder. A party was thrown to celebrate the end of the tour’s first leg, and footage of players dancing shirtless in a crowded venue was released. The participants also engaged in recreational games of soccer and basketball. From watching these activities, it would be understandable for someone to assume that COVID-19 was completely gone from Serbia and Croatia.

Unfortunately, that assumption is wrong. Dimitrov, in his last match of the tour, was visibly struggling, and chose to exchange a fist-bump with his opponent, Andrey Rublev (who has tested negative for the virus) and the umpire. After the match, 19th-ranked Dimitrov traveled to his home in Monaco before getting tested and releasing the results through an Instagram post. After receiving word of Dimitrov’s status, the other players participating in the Adria Tour took tests — except Djokovic.

Saying that he felt fine, Djokovic bizarrely declined to take a test after Dimitrov released his positive test, instead returning to his residence in Serbia. This is a worrying piece of information; it’s common knowledge that carriers of COVID-19 typically don’t experience symptoms for around two weeks after being infected. The fact that Djokovic seems not to have known this seriously calls into question his credibility when it comes to organizing and putting on a tennis event throughout which the players did not wear masks or practice social distancing. Dimitrov and Djokovic both traveled to their homes before taking tests that turned out to be positive, likely exposing others to the virus in the process.

The remainder of the Adria Tour has been canceled. Djokovic released a statement today on Twitter and Instagram that included “I am so deeply sorry that our tournament has caused harm,” and “We believed the tournament met all health protocols and the health of our region seemed in good condition to finally unite people for philanthropic reasons. We were wrong and it was too soon.” As the leader of the ATP Player Council and the organizer of the Adria Tour, Djokovic bears the most responsibility for the damage that the tournament has called (though he’s definitely not the only one responsible), and many are calling for him to step down from the Player Council. His reputation has taken a big hit.

“Hindsight is 20/20” is a well-known saying, but one of the biggest tragedies of the debacle is that it was likely avoidable. Many expressed surprise at the disregard the Adria Tour was showing to the virus by holding packed crowds and taking zero to few safety measures. It seems that the tournament could have been held safely if social distancing had been practiced.

In bringing the Adria Tour to life, Djokovic was organizing a tournament with the intent of bringing in money for charitable foundations. This is an admirable goal, and his status as a generous philanthropist is well-known, but through a poor understanding of COVID-19 and a lack of caution taken, he and others have jeopardized the health of many.

A good deal of people have downplayed the severity and danger of COVID-19, even as it has resulted in the deaths of nearly a half million people worldwide. After the Adria Tour, participants who may have previously been in that camp have likely left. Hopefully, the mistakes of the well-meaning tournament will not be repeated.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, please leave a comment or tweet @tennisnation.

Many locations around the world are experiencing second waves of COVID-19. For information on the virus, please visit the CDC website. To help avoid being infected, try to stay at least six feet apart from others when outside your house, wash your hands, and wear a mask when in public.

The Unique Charm of Each Major Tournament

By Owen Lewis

The tennis season encapsulates tournaments of diverse location, prestige, and court speed, but the most well-known events are undoubtedly the four majors, or Grand Slams, scattered across the calendar. Each is worth more points than any non-major event (2000 points), and features a lengthened best-of-five format on the men’s side, but the similarities between the slams end there. The majors feature distinct personalities; over the many decades that they have been played each has cultivated a detailed image. From the air of sophistication at Wimbledon to the boisterous, celebrity-pockmarked crowd at the U.S. Open, the majors are four siblings with different appearances and substances.

The Australian Open

The first major of the year, the Australian Open, takes place in Melbourne Park, a network of courts near the city for which it is named. Scorching temperatures are reached during many editions of the tournament, even during the night matches under the lights of Rod Laver Arena, the show court named for the great Australian. Laver achieved the calendar Grand Slam (the name can now be applied to the majors, but its original meaning was winning all four majors in the same year) twice, lifting him to legendary status. He can be seen at the Australian Open every year.

The 2020 tournament (literally) had a dark cloud above the courts. Australia was ravaged by bushfires early this year, and the air quality was deemed by experts to be unsafe for periods in January. Still, the qualifying rounds preceded without an appropriately long delay, resulting in casualties of the smoky air such as Dalila Jakupovic (read my piece on the fiasco here).

Still, the Australian Open is called the “Happy Slam” for a reason. As it’s early in the year (taking place from mid-January to early February), it often features a full and healthy draw of the world’s best players. Some of the best matches in recent and all history have taken place on Rod Laver Arena, like the Simona Halep-Angelique Kerber semifinal in 2018 (both players saved match points before Halep won the match 9-7 in the third. Watch highlights here). Wild momentum swings can occur — at this year’s tournament, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, who now own a combined 14 Australian Open titles (Djokovic has eight, Federer has six), played in the semifinals. Federer got off to a fast start, taking a 4-1 lead in the first set and earning a love-40 advantage in Djokovic’s service game. Thirty-five minutes later, Djokovic led 6-1 in the tiebreak that he had forced by saving all three break points, holding from love-30 down at 2-5, and breaking Federer to love, getting back on serve.

As Federer prepared to serve at 1-6 down in the first set tiebreak, the camera panned over the court from an aerial angle, reducing the gladiators to specks on the vibrant blue court which stood out against the purple and yellow glow of the sunset. It seemed that Federer’s lead had slipped away faster than the day itself, and that his chances of winning were fading as the light left the evening, as if it were Djokovic himself pulling the sun below the horizon. Djokovic hammered home this perception by meeting Federer’s first serve with a powerful backhand return, sending the ball screaming down the line for a winner. Djokovic went on to close out the match 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-3 as the pink and violet sky gave way to the inky darkness of night, and would win the final two nights later to win his eighth title in Melbourne.

The Australian Open has gained much prestige in the last half century. Many greats of the 1980s and even 90s skipped it in favor of rest, training, or other tournaments. But over time, it has caught up to the other three majors in terms of historical value and importance. After 1986, it was moved from December to January, and now sets the tone for the rest of the year. The winner of the tournament bags 2000 points, as is the case with all majors, and often enters the Sunshine Swing (the Indian Wells and Miami tournaments) as the favorite.

Roland-Garros

The second major of the year also goes by the name “The French Open”, Roland-Garros being a French fighter pilot in World War I. Between the Australian Open and this major, tournaments shift from hard courts to clay in order to prepare the tour for the slower surface. Court Philippe-Chatrier, the show court of Roland-Garros, though a roof has been installed this year, has a less enclosed feel than Rod Laver Arena. Players can take advantage of the slower pace, sliding to get in position for their shots.

Roland-Garros is the major prize that has eluded many legends of the game, and fittingly, the red clay sticks to players’ clothes, looking similar to dried blood.

Rafael Nadal has mastered Roland-Garros like no one ever has and likely ever will, winning the tournament on his first attempt in 2005 and winning 11 of the next 14 editions of the championship. Yet the Parisian crowd doesn’t always favor the King of Clay, instead throwing their support more solidly behind Federer, who won his only Roland-Garros title in 2009.

On the women’s side, players have briefly ruled the tournament, but not with the same consistency as Nadal. Justine Henin won four titles in Paris in five years (2003, 2005-2007), and Serena Williams has won Roland-Garros three times, but the women’s tournament has seen six different winners in the last six years (for context, the men’s side has had three different winners in the last six years, and just four in the last fifteen years).

Roland-Garros likely houses the most scarcely-believable sliding retrievals among the majors. Court Philippe-Chatrier has seen some incredible shots; in 2015, Stanislas Wawrinka directed a one-handed backhand between the net post and a box reading “IBM” (one of the sponsors of the tournament), slotting the winner through a gap smaller than half a foot.

Patience is required to win Roland-Garros. What would be a winner at Wimbledon may be returned deep on the red clay in Paris, and point construction is key. Many rallies end with one or both players visibly tired.

Wimbledon

Wimbledon is the major most leaden with history. It is the only slam to enforce a dress code, and all athletes dress in white. Established in 1877, the tournament is probably the one that most tennis players dream of winning as children. Wimbledon has seen 15-year-old Cori Gauff take out five-time champion Venus Williams (Gauff’s senior by more than 22 years), a timeless Federer-Nadal final end in twilight and an explosion of flashbulbs, one-sided matches, and a freakish John Isner-Nicolas Mahut first-round match end 70-68 in the fifth (the extended deciding set has since been done away with, there is now a tiebreak at 12-all in the final set).

As the fans and royals eat strawberries and cream, players do battle on the meticulously trimmed grass courts of the All England Club. Center Court is the most famous at Wimbledon, though a side court, Court 2, is known as the “Graveyard of Champions”, such is its reputation for housing upsets.

Players with powerful serves are often successful at Wimbledon as grass is a faster surface than clay and most hard courts, but a serve alone is never enough to win the title. The grass has slowed in recent years, and the champions of the last few tournaments haven’t been huge servers.

Martina Navratilova has been the most successful player ever at Wimbledon, winning the event nine times. From 1982 to 1987, her serve-and-volley based game ruled the lawns. While that style is now all but extinct, players like Navratilova, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, and Pete Sampras have left a permanent mark on SW19. And serve-and-volley appears more at Wimbledon than at the other majors.

Silence typically falls on Center Court as a player goes into their service motion. The crowds have a reputation for being well-behaved (though many feel otherwise after they exhibited fierce support of Federer over Djokovic in last year’s final). But as the server bounces the ball, the sound echoes around Center Court, followed by the noises of effort and ballstriking during the points, as if the venue is soaking up the history and significance of each shot.

The U.S. Open

In many ways, the United States Open is a foil to Wimbledon. The crowd is more boisterous; far more excited yells will fill the air during a good rally in Flushing Meadows than at other slams. The celebrities that populate the audience get at least as much attention from the cameras as the Royal Box does at SW19.

The crowd unsurprisingly loves American players over all others, but they have adopted others too, a notable example being Juan Martín del Potro of Argentina. Fans showered him with adoration as he pulled off a stunning upset of Federer to win the 2009 U.S. Open, and have kept their support behind him ever since. They have been given reason to cheer despite del Potro’s nagging wrist injuries — he executed the kind of comeback that couldn’t have been scripted any better on paper over Dominic Thiem in the fourth round of the 2017 tournament. The crowd erupted after each of del Potro’s missile-like forehand winners, helping propel the Argentinean to an improbable win from two sets down.

The fans at the U.S. Open play a big part in matches. They form grudges, as they did against Djokovic during a controversial on-court interview he had after beating crowd favorite Andy Roddick. Though Djokovic has since won the tournament three times, the fans haven’t completely come around on him yet.

Boos can pour from Arthur Ashe Stadium at any time — many fans will make their displeasure known when an athlete stops play to argue with the umpire, even if they don’t know the reason for the argument.

The U.S. Open has an air of unpredictability. The top players have had plenty of success there, but in 2015 Serena Williams, who was on the cusp of completing a calendar Grand Slam, shockingly lost to the unseeded Roberta Vinci in the semifinals. It was among the biggest upsets in tennis history. On the men’s side, since Federer won the last of his five consecutive titles in 2008, no one has been able to defend their title. The positioning of the U.S. Open in the calendar means that many players are worn out or injured by the time the tournament begins, so some years the fortnight can be flat, but other years the exciting atmosphere is supplemented by huge upsets and quality matches.

While the majors are extremely different, not just in venue but in crowd personality and atmosphere, they are collectively the height of excellence in tennis. Each has been the setting for moments and matches that are etched into the minds of fans around the world, and the tournaments will continue to watch as players make history.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment or tweet @tennisnation. Be safe!

Nadal vs. Verdasco: 2009 Australian Open Semifinal as it happened

By Owen Lewis

Hello and welcome to my game-by-game report (I’m writing as if this match were live) of the Rafael Nadal-Fernando Verdasco Australian Open semifinal! This match will determine who plays Roger Federer in the championship match, and many have written off 14th-seeded Verdasco and are awaiting a rematch of the 2008 Wimbledon final, the best match of last year and potentially of all time.

Nadal has to get through his fellow Spanish lefty before he can have another crack at Federer, however, and Verdasco has impressed so far in this Australian Open, not least in his fourth-round defeat of U.S. Open finalist Andy Murray. The Scot is a great hard court player — he beat top-seeded Nadal in the semifinal of last year’s Flushing Meadows tournament.

Still, Verdasco is a clear underdog in this match. Nadal may have lost in the semifinals of the U.S. Open, but he won Roland-Garros, Wimbledon, and the Olympics last year, wrestling the number one ranking away from Federer, who had held it for an uninterrupted (and scarcely believable) four and a half years. Nadal is yet to drop a set in this tournament, and dismissed sixth seed Gilles Simon in a straight-set quarterfinal. He’ll be eager to defeat Federer in their first major meeting on hard courts, further eroding the Swiss’s confidence and dominance.

Nadal is aiming to make his first Australian Open final, last year he was taken out at this stage by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and a brilliant, penetrating storm of groundstrokes. Seeing as Verdasco defeated Tsonga, the fifth seed, in the quarterfinals, maybe a tremendous upset is in order. What’s more likely, though, is that the in-form Nadal’s defenses will prove too strong for Verdasco’s powerful groundstrokes. The 14th seed will need to go for broke, as Tsonga did in 2008, to have a chance tonight.

Nadal was once susceptible to being blown off the court (at least in off-clay matches) by a sustained burst of power, as Tsonga did to him at this tournament in 2008 and Fernando Gonzalez did the year before that. Nadal has refined his defenses, though, and crushed Gonzalez earlier in the draw.

The underdog’s game likely has the firepower to propel him to a good performance against the top seed. Verdasco’s serve packs a solid punch, and his forehand is fearsome at its best. Still, it’s unlikely that he will be able to play his very best tennis for long enough to win three sets. Nadal is in superb physical condition, and it’s probable that Verdasco will be the first to tire in the case of an epic.

Nadal leads the rivalry 7-0, and demolished Verdasco in their most recent match (at the 2008 Roland-Garros tournament) for the loss of just three games. Granted, their match tonight is on hard court, but Verdasco has his work cut out for him.

This match, regardless of result, promises to present some interesting tactics and rallies. Both will likely make an effort to avoid serving to the other’s forehand, and Nadal may hit more forehands down the line than is typical of him in order to avoid Verdasco’s stronger wing. Since most of his opponents are righty, his crosscourt forehand is often his default shot as he tries to find his opposition’s backhand, so if Verdasco is playing well tonight, Nadal’s forehand down the line may be tested.

Verdasco will have to start well. This is his first major semifinal, and if the magnitude of the match gets to him, making him tight early, the match could be over within the first couple games. This is the challenge that underdogs face when facing a legend of the game — and with Nadal’s instantly legendary win at Wimbledon last year, he has lifted himself into that category, proving that he is capable of mastering more than just the clay courts (over which his reign is unchallenged).

Nadal, on the other hand, has everything to lose. This year has the potential to be his best ever. Given his ridiculously good performance at Roland-Garros last year, one would think that barring injury, the 2009 trophy is all but his; Novak Djokovic taking the third set of their semifinal to a tiebreak was the extent to which Nadal was challenged at the French Open in 2008. And Nadal must also be considered a strong threat at Wimbledon, now that he’s dethroned Federer. If the world number one can win this tournament, he could be looking at a year in which he wins three majors.

If Verdasco is hoping for Nadal to put up a tight performance, though, he’ll almost certainly be disappointed. The best player in the world displayed impressive mental strength at Wimbledon last year. When Federer rebounded from a two-set deficit, evening the match, Nadal responded by serving well in the fifth, only allowing the Swiss a look at one break point (which Nadal saved seamlessly, bouncing an overhead into the seats). He also saved 16 of 17 break points against Federer in the 2007 French Open final; Nadal is perhaps the best big point player in the world. Verdasco will have to serve well, return well, and do virtually everything well, but he’ll also have to be opportunistic. Nadal will make him pay for missed chances.

The players are finished warming up, and the second men’s semifinal is about to begin. Let’s hope for an epic match — the men’s tournament has been spectacular so far, yielding 21 five-setters! I don’t think many would say no to one more.

First set: Verdasco 1-0 Nadal (the italicized player is the next to serve)

It’s 30 degrees Celsius on court — quite warm for a late match. Verdasco won the toss and elected to serve, and an easy hold would likely help settle his nerves and build confidence that he can produce a strong performance tonight. He begins the biggest match of his life by cracking a forehand wide. An extended rally takes place at love-15, and it’s Verdasco who comes out on top, forcing an error with a well-angled backhand. The 14th seed shanks a forehand early in the next point, but it stays in and eventually Nadal bends a forehand wide. Verdasco sends a backhand long, and here’s an early test at 30-all. The underdog passes with flying colors, hitting a great serve down the middle and thrashing an inside-out forehand winner. He follows that with another missed backhand, though: deuce. Verdasco crushes an inside-in forehand, and Nadal’s defensive sliced forehand is just wide. It’s game point, but Verdasco nets a forehand for deuce #2. This game is so crucial for him, and the longer it goes the more questions it will likely ask of the underdog. He reaches game point for a third time with a service winner, then bashes an ace down the middle to secure a vital hold of serve.

First set: Verdasco 1-1 Nadal

Verdasco weathers some hard hitting from Nadal early in the rally, getting to a neutral position, but undoes his work with a needlessly long forehand. The world number one cracks an ace down the tee for 30-love, then lashes an inside-out forehand winner. Three game points. Verdasco’s return is deep, forcing Nadal to hit an awkward pickup which sets up Verdasco for a simple forehand winner. Another imposing shot on that wing, a pacy inside-in effort, hauls him to 40-30, but Nadal unloads on an inside-out forehand and Verdasco can’t keep the ball in play.

First set: Verdasco 2-1 Nadal

A big serve to Nadal’s forehand and a crisp forehand winner see Verdasco move 30-love up in short order. He looks to have settled in already, which is an encouraging sign for him. He sweeps a crosscourt forehand winner for 40-love, then holds to love with an ace out wide.

First set: Verdasco 2-2 Nadal

Both players are wearing ice towels around their necks on the changeover, which gives an idea of how hot it is on court. Verdasco wins his fifth consecutive point with a crosscourt forehand winner struck at a beautiful angle; Nadal didn’t have a play on it. The top seed makes it 15-all with a big serve down the middle, celebrating with a “Vamos!” The fact that he’s pumping himself up so early shows both that he knows the serve was crucial, and that he very much wants to win this match. Verdasco returns long, but makes up for it by performing some baseline mastery: he bullies Nadal with his backhand, smashing one down the line that opens up the court, then takes the next one early, sending it crosscourt with force, and Nadal can’t get there in time. Verdasco has a sniff in this game at 30-all, and he has a break point after doing well to slice back a Nadal forehand deep! But how he’ll regret this next miss! He dominates another baseline rally, forcing Nadal to toss up a lob after slotting an excellent forehand into the corner, but he smashes long! He can’t miss chances like that. Nadal immediately closes out the game with a service winner and a strong backhand down the line. The window of opportunity for Verdasco is small, and he’ll need to maintain his focus in this next service game.

First set: Verdasco 3-2 Nadal

The 14th seed serves big for 15-love. He then wins an excellent point — he works his way into the net, slamming down an overhead, but Nadal is scrambling delightfully well and returns the smash deep. Verdasco shows his brains by realizing Nadal will be happy to sprint back and forth until he wins the point, and instead of trying to cream the ball past his countryman he slices a smooth drop shot that Nadal doesn’t come close to, such was his depth in position. Well done. The crowd gives Verdasco a nice hand for that; he’s made an excellent start to this match. Nadal badly mishits a second serve return, handing Verdasco three game points. The top seed reads a wide serve, flicking a beautiful crosscourt forehand return winner, then Verdasco pounds a forehand long for 40-30. Nadal has three winners and three unforced errors so far, while Verdasco has nine winners and eight unforced errors. He’s playing very well, and clearly knows that he needs to take big risks and go for the lines to have a chance in this match. He misses another forehand, though, and this game has become very complicated quickly. A hold here is so important for Verdasco, not just to keep him in the set, but to quiet the missed overhead demons from the last game.

Nadal is moving well, and looks to be firmly in control of the deuce point, when Verdasco suddenly unleashes a vicious forehand down the line, surprising Nadal and forcing him to net his sliced backhand. It’s deuce again when Verdasco nets a slice of his own, but he reaches advantage with a service winner, then holds with another great serve. It took Verdasco five game points to escape with the hold, but he did hold and has managed to stay on serve. He is very much still in this set.

First set: Verdasco 3-3 Nadal

Nadal tries to angle an inside-out forehand across the court from the deuce side corner, but it goes wide (he challenges incorrectly). Love-15. He goes behind Verdasco with a pretty forehand down the line, setting himself up for a smash, which he calmly puts away. Verdasco nets back-to-back slices, and Nadal is up 40-15 quickly. Another errant shot from the underdog, a missed crosscourt forehand, sees Nadal hold comfortably.

First set: Verdasco 4-3 Nadal

A great rally to start this game: Verdasco moves Nadal this way and that, finally pulling the trigger with an inside-in forehand that proves unreturnable. He’s exhibiting the right degree of aggression; he is often the aggressor in rallies but isn’t going for unrealistic shots. An ace makes it 30-love, then a sharp return from Nadal rushes Verdasco and he nets a backhand. A heavy wide serve from the 14th seed gives him two game points. He’s serving very well, and showing that he can hold his own in baseline rallies, as he does in the next point, outlasting his opponent who nets a backhand. His play so far bodes very well for him — not to mention, he looks composed and prepared for a brutal match. But he can’t afford to lose his focus; Nadal could overrun him very quickly.

First set: Verdasco 4-4 Nadal

Verdasco shanks a forehand from a neutral position. That’ll hurt. Nadal answers a short return not by spinning a forehand away, but by cutting an angled drop shot, and the tactic proves effective as Verdasco’s dink sails well wide. Nadal smacks a forehand wide, giving Verdasco a slight opening at 30-15, which then widens: Verdasco bangs a backhand down the line, then glides to the net and pokes a volley winner. This is a huge point at 30-all. Nadal wins it quickly, directing a backhand down the line that Verdasco returns long. The 14th seed goes for an aggressive second serve return, but he drills it into the net.

First set: Verdasco 5-4 Nadal

Verdasco puts away a swing volley winner (he was fortunate as it clipped the net tape, then went over), showing his willingness to move forward. He swats a forehand well wide, but serves well for 30-15. Another service winner followed by his third unreturned serve of the game wrap up an impressive hold. He’s surpassed many expectations already, and will now be rewarded by forcing Nadal to serve to stay in the set.

First set: Verdasco 5-5 Nadal

Verdasco’s return is spectacular, an angled crosscourt backhand, and he lashes Nadal’s defensive reply with a forehand winner deep into the right corner. He’s three points from the set, which quickly becomes two as he punishes a Nadal second serve with a curling crosscourt forehand winner. Nadal has to win the next three points to get out of the woods, which he does: a whistling inside-out forehand forces an error, he survives an early assault from Verdasco (who nets a backhand), and he muscles a service winner. That’s great tennis under pressure, he would have been down set point if he’d lost any of those three points. Instead his efforts see him stand at game point, though Verdasco pulls back to deuce as Nadal sends an angled forehand wide. Unfazed, the world number one forces an error with a sharp inside-in forehand. Yet it’s deuce again as Verdasco pummels Nadal’s second serve, landing a backhand on the baseline that Nadal reaches but doesn’t have a hope of shoveling back in. The top seed crushes his second ace of the match, unexpectedly serving to his countryman’s forehand. An identical tactic then yields another ace, this one out wide! Amazing decision-making and nerveless tennis from Nadal.

First set: Verdasco 6-5 Nadal

Nadal wins a moderately long rally, ending when Verdasco nets a backhand. The 14th seed would do well to knuckle down here, a break could be crippling. He forces Nadal to hit long for 15-all, then stops the point to challenge one of Nadal’s shots that landed near the baseline. HawkEye reveals that it was in by about half a millimeter, and Verdasco is up against it at 15-30. He smiles at the tiny margin by which he was wrong, then forgets about it and nails a gutsy forehand winner after missing his first serve. It’s another important moment at 30-all, and this time Verdasco does blink, nervously dumping a forehand into the net. It wasn’t close to going over. Amazingly, this is Nadal’s first break point of the match, and he doesn’t get a chance to get into the point as Verdasco barrels a massive serve down the middle. He’s facing another break point after he sends a backhand long, however. His first serve is out, but his second pushes Nadal wide, opening up the court for an unreturnable crosscourt backhand. Nadal was too far back on the return, but that was impressive proactive play from Verdasco. He clubs an inside-out forehand winner, then drills an ace out wide for the hold.

Verdasco has answered Nadal’s first serious challenge of his serve, and has earned himself at least a tiebreak this set. The opening frame is always important, but it’s difficult to see Verdasco coming back from a set down. The 14th seed has played some spectacular tennis to put himself in this position; against many other players he would likely have already won this set.

First set: Verdasco 6-6 Nadal

Verdasco dispatches Nadal’s first serve with a clean, smooth backhand winner down the line. What a way to begin a return game. Nadal responds with a service winner, then Verdasco pats a backhand long. 30-15. Verdasco plays a spectacular point for 30-all! Nadal is in control, running his countryman from side to side with penetrating forehands, but Verdasco stays in the rally, then pounds a forehand right on the baseline that sees Nadal hit long! The world number one’s serve is under pressure for the second straight game; Verdasco is two points away from the set for the sixth time. Nadal hasn’t allowed him a look at a set point, though, and keeps his streak intact with a drop shot that Verdasco sends well out. Nadal bends an ace out wide and this outstanding first set will be decided by a tiebreak!

First set tiebreak: Verdasco 1-0 Nadal

Verdasco takes care of his first service point, smacking an inside-out forehand, then sprinting to net and easily blocking a volley winner.

Verdasco 1-1 Nadal

Nadal’s serve down the tee is powerful; Verdasco’s return sails long.

Verdasco 1-2 Nadal

Nadal drills a pair of inside-out forehands, approaching the net behind the second and displaying great touch with a beautiful drop volley winner!

Verdasco 1-3 Nadal

Nadal returns a second serve short, but Verdasco hits well long on an attempted backhand winner. That could be costly.

Verdasco 2-3 Nadal

Verdasco ensures the deficit is limited to a single mini-break, delivering an ace down the middle.

Verdasco 3-3 Nadal

Verdasco gets the mini-break back, forcing an error with a sharp volley! He’s hit 22 winners this set!

Verdasco 3-4 Nadal

Verdasco’s return is hit at a spectacular angle — he might have mishit it — but Nadal smashes a crosscourt backhand in return that isn’t coming back.

Verdasco 4-4 Nadal

Verdasco attacks, coming to net and dispatching an overhead. The tension is rising in what has already been a very dramatic set.

Verdasco 5-4 Nadal

The 14th seed sends a huge serve out wide, Nadal’s return isn’t anywhere near going in. For the seventh time, Verdasco is two points away from winning the set.

Verdasco 6-4 Nadal

What luck for Verdasco and bad fortune for Nadal! A backhand from the former hits the net tape and dies, on the line and mere inches in front of the net. Verdasco holds up his racket in apology.

Verdasco wins the first set 7-6 (4)!

Nadal tries a drop shot early in the rally, Verdasco races forward and curves a forehand down the line into the corner, Nadal can only reply with a lob, and Verdasco swats away the overhead! What a set!

Verdasco hit a staggering 25 winners that set, as well as 20 unforced errors. He served at a surely unsustainable 76%, won 10/13 points at net, and hit five aces. Nadal hit just five unforced errors, but was well behind in the winners category with eight. He didn’t do much wrong; the net cord in the tiebreak was his undoing, though the drop shot on set point wasn’t executed very well.

Similar to what I call the love-30 principle (the server must win three straight points to get to a somewhat safe position at 40-30), Nadal must now win the next two sets to get into a favorable position. Verdasco might want to consider putting everything into the next set in hopes of earning a two-set lead; so often after an attritional, grinding, high-quality set like that, the underdog relaxes for an instant and loses the following set 6-1 or 6-2. Verdasco has played one of the best sets of his career, but he’s still just a third of the way to winning the match. He still doesn’t have room to drop his level at all.

On the other side of things, this second set is just short of a must-win frame for Nadal. He’s come back from two sets down before, but a player never wants to face that big of a deficit, especially not in a major semifinal when the final is looming less than 48 hours later. He might want to come into net more this set; he was 4/4 at the net in the opening frame. But for the most part, he played a fantastic set, serving at 72%. This shows just how well Verdasco has been playing; he won five times as many points with winners as he won courtesy of Nadal’s unforced errors.

Second set: Nadal 1-0 Verdasco

The first set was more important for Verdasco than Nadal, but it’s the top seed who needs the second frame more badly. He makes a great start, slotting a difficult inside-in forehand winner, then Verdasco hits long. An pair of aces see Nadal hold to love; that was pretty much the best start he could’ve made to the second set.

Second set: Nadal 1-1 Verdasco

This game is a very important one. If Verdasco holds easily, I seriously doubt that Nadal will have everything his own way this set (meaning he’ll need to work very hard to win the set). But if Nadal can break, the set could get away from Verdasco in the space of a couple minutes.

A horrible call by the linesperson; Verdasco hit an ace on the line that was called out. Nadal sportingly gives his friend and countryman the point. A big serve from Verdasco followed by a crunching backhand winner down the line make it 40-love in short order, and another backhand winner, this one crosscourt, seals a love hold.

Verdasco’s play has been so impressive thus far, if Nadal was hoping for a dip in intensity from the 14th seed there he’ll be very disappointed. This set could be as closely contested as the first.

Second set: Nadal 2-1 Verdasco

Verdasco had a pretty good look at a forehand passing shot, but netted it. He admonishes himself; he knows exactly how important these games and points are. Nadal serves big, then Verdasco mishits a forehand that sails long. Nadal’s won seven service points in a row, but Verdasco quickly puts a stop to that run by bashing Nadal’s first serve crosscourt for a winner. The world number one misses a forehand, and this game is looking potentially dangerous at 40-30. Nadal forces Verdasco to hit long with a well-placed inside-in forehand, yelling “Vamos!” as his opponent’s shot flies beyond the baseline. He’s still the favorite to win this match, but that could change very quickly if he throws in a loose service game. He did well to avoid trouble there.

Second set: Nadal 2-2 Verdasco

Verdasco opens up the court with fierce forehands, tees up the attempted inside-out forehand winner, and slams it into the net tape. It trickles over for his second fortunate winner today. Nadal misses a return, then another, looping a second serve well out off his backhand side. Now Verdasco has won seven straight service points, and it’s eight as he holds with a gorgeous lob! Nadal didn’t move for it; he knew he was beaten.

Second set: Nadal 3-2 Verdasco

That’s two straight love holds for Verdasco, and each of Nadal’s service games seems more and more important. The world number one kicks off this game with an ace, but then swerves a forehand wide. This is a big point; if he loses it he’ll be down 15-30 and staring a break in the face. Verdasco is up in the point, and has a look at a forehand winner down the line, but hits it well long; it was too central to win him the point even if it had gone in. He may have gotten tight on that shot. It’s soon 40-15 and Nadal holds with an emphatic forehand winner down the line.

Second set: Nadal 3-3 Verdasco

Nadal is warned for a coaching violation, reported by the line judge, and Nadal is frustrated, citing that Verdasco’s coach is also offering assistance from the stands. It wasn’t an official warning, however.

This game begins with an outstanding rally; it seems to be completely neutral for the vast majority of the time, then Verdasco forces Nadal into a defensive slice and ropes a beautiful backhand winner down the line that ends up right in the corner. A big serve and an errant forehand from Nadal see Verdasco in the ascendancy with three game points, and only one is needed as he smashes an ace down the middle. Nadal hasn’t won a point against serve this set, and he hasn’t been returning noticeably badly. Instead of Verdasco’s level dropping, it’s gone up. Nadal could be in some serious trouble.

Second set: Nadal 4-3 Verdasco

Verdasco strokes a forehand winner into the left corner, and the alarm bells have to be clanging in Nadal’s head at love-15. He tries a drop shot, and Verdasco bounds forward, pushing an easy backhand down the line for a winner. Given the ease with which Verdasco has been holding serve so far this set, Nadal really can’t afford to lose his serve here. The world number one surely knows this, and drills a service winner to Verdasco’s forehand. An ace, again directed to the forehand side, makes it 30-all, and another serve to the forehand catches out Verdasco for an ace! That’s Nadal for you, even with a serve that isn’t a prolific ace-hitter, he finds a way to make it work from him. Incredibly clutch serving. A fourth consecutive unreturned serve is fired across the court, coaxing a cry of “Venga!” from Nadal. He’s fired up, but he hasn’t dented the Verdasco serve yet this set, and another tiebreak would likely see his opponent as the favorite.

Second set: Nadal 4-4 Verdasco

Verdasco scorches a forehand winner down the line, putting him up 15-love and extending his streak of points won on serve this set to 13. It does end on the next point, with Verdasco netting a backhand, and we may get a look at the negative value of a streak. Winning many points on serve in a row can create an unreasonable expectation for a hold to love in every game, and when that doesn’t happen it can snowball, resulting in a break. Verdasco is eager to avoid this, blistering a massive serve out wide for 30-15, but Nadal anticipates a forehand that Verdasco struck right on top of the net, slashing a forehand pass for 30-all. Huge point. Nadal defends well, gets his teeth into the rally, then forces the court open and pounds an inside-out forehand winner. This is likely one of the bigger break points Nadal has had in his career, but it disappears in a flash as Verdasco produces another big serve. Verdasco follows that by slicing into the net, though, and Nadal will have another chance. The 14th seed whips an ace down the middle. Amazing. He can’t reach advantage, however, and a missed backhand brings up the third break point. Verdasco misses a first serve, but Nadal’s return off the second is short and the underdog guides a backhand winner into the open court. Nadal anticipates another approach, again firing a gorgeous pass crosscourt. Break point again — the quality of this match has been unbelievably good; this game’s been spectacular. Nadal breaks a string on a second serve return; that’s terrible luck. He’ll have to put it behind him. Verdasco fearlessly attacks, pummeling a jumping smash for advantage. This would be an incredible hold, and he wins the game with an inside-out forehand winner!

What a game. If there was any doubt about Verdasco’s mettle before, it’s gone now. He saved four break points that game — two with winners and another with a tremendous service winner. If he can get into this return game, he could very well be serving for a two-set lead in a few minutes. Nadal played a very good game there and lost it anyway; in that sense it was a microcosm of the first set. He needs to be sharp in the next game. The momentum is squarely behind Verdasco at the moment.

Second set: Nadal 5-4 Verdasco

Nadal nails an amazing inside-out forehand while falling backward, finishing the point with a smash. He then sends down his first double fault of the match, the first for either player for that matter. Nadal bangs an inside-out forehand winner for 30-15, then flays a big serve down the middle. Verdasco is muttering angrily to himself; he’s a tough critic because he’s been close to perfect so far this match. Nadal hits well long for 40-30, but a good serve out wide completes a very, very important hold.

Nadal wins the second set 6-4!

Verdasco changes his shirt, drawing whistles and cheers from the crowd. An extended rally begins this game, ending when the 14th seed misses a forehand. Nadal is three points from the set. Verdasco blasts an ace down the middle for 15-all. He then punches an inside-in forehand swing volley; Nadal reached it but netted his riposte. A good one-two punch from Verdasco makes it 40-15, Nadal is frustrated with the depth of his return. He forces Verdasco wide on the next point, who goes for a winner and cracks it into the net. The underdog flicks a forehand long and all of a sudden it’s deuce. Both players need to be very careful here.

That’s the point of the match!! Verdasco throws everything at Nadal: deep crosscourt backhands, a backhand down the line, a fiercely angled forehand, and a vicious sliced backhand loaded with sidespin, but Nadal chases down all of them, then sweeps a lovely, spinning, dipping forehand down the line that completely surprises Verdasco and the entire crowd, landing in the corner for a winner! Verdasco smiles after the point; not much to say there but “too good”. Set point, and Nadal evens the match as Verdasco hits a forehand long! He bends into a crouch and roars as the crowd erupts. This is a match of supreme quality.

That was a vital set for Nadal. He threatened to break in the eighth game, but Verdasco saved four break points in style. It became evident that Nadal was going to have to do something special to win the set, and he delivered, winning an astonishing rally to reach set point. Verdasco made a couple untimely errors in the 4-5 game, but played a fantastic set overall: 17 winners to just 7 unforced errors, 6/8 points won at net, and a first serve percentage of 71%.

Unfortunately for Verdasco, Nadal played a slightly better set. The world number one has hit a mind-bogglingly low 10 unforced errors (over two hours of play), and hit 13 winners that set. He made 89% of his first serves, another ridiculous stat.

Verdasco is now the player in trouble — in all likelihood, he’s played better than he ever has for these first two sets, and he’s lost one of them. His first one or two service games in the third will be massively important. I feel like a broken record, but again he can’t allow his level to dip at all. He did a splendid job of that in the second set, and lost it anyway, but he’ll lose the third 6-1 if he doesn’t remain utterly focused.

This has been a brilliant match. Verdasco has hit 42 winners and 27 unforced errors so far, to Nadal’s 21 winners and 10 unforced errors. Both players are serving well, moving well, and performing well under pressure. This has certainly been the highest quality match played on the men’s tour since the Wimbledon final last year.

Third set: Nadal 1-0 Verdasco

Nadal misses a regulation forehand for love-15. An early break would be huge for Verdasco, to reverse the momentum and restore his belief. Nadal punches an inside-out forehand winner, then fires an unreturned serve. Verdasco has a look at a winner on the next point, set up by a great return, but he’s too central with the attempt and eventually misses a volley. Another heavy, deep return shoots off Verdasco’s racket, this time forcing Nadal to net, but Verdasco misses a backhand and Nadal holds.

Third set: Nadal 2-0 Verdasco

Nadal’s won three games in a row — Verdasco needs to hold here to reassert himself. He badly misses a backhand wide, but levels after the latest epic rally! He defends well, then runs down a drop shot and manages to land his reply in the corner of the service box for a winner. He then closes the net behind a precise crosscourt backhand, casually volleying a winner. He repeats the trick at 30-15, blocking a backhand volley safely into the open court. His level is still so high. Verdasco tries to bury a backhand down the line, but the angle is a bit off and it floats past the sideline. Nadal returns a first serve deep, running his countryman around with sharply angled forehands, and Verdasco misses quickly. Nadal is really testing his legs now. The 14th seed misses a short backhand, and the break point he faces now feels crucial. He evades it with great ballstriking, a smooth backhand down the line setting him up for an inside-out forehand winner. Nadal is hitting his groundstrokes well, though, and bullies Verdasco around the court until the underdog misses a forehand. He saves the second break point, approaching the net and somehow scooping a volley winner off of an incredibly low pass! That’s one of the shots of the match. A one-two punch sees him reach advantage, and this is a big point; this game is reminiscient of the 3-4 game in the second.

Nadal isn’t letting him out of this game, he runs Verdasco corner to corner for what feels like the 10th time this game, crushing an inside-in forehand winner. No matter who wins this game, it’s doing no favors for Verdasco’s legs. He finds an ace to reach game point again, but Nadal moves him around the court yet again, forcing Verdasco to go for a low-percentage backhand, which he misses. Verdasco issues an incorrect challenge and is facing another break point, which he saves with a powerful forehand that causes Nadal to slice into the net. The top seed punches his racket in annoyance. Verdasco sends a sitting volley long, and it’s his turn for a frustrated reaction; he swats the net with his racket. And Nadal breaks! He chases down a short volley, unleashing a spinning forehand pass deep into the corner! That could be a backbreaker for Verdasco.

Third set: Nadal 2-1 Verdasco

Verdasco tosses up a lob, Nadal tries for a skyhook smash and it’s wide. The feeling is that he needs to break back here; if he doesn’t he’ll have lost five straight games. He’s making a push, and rips a crosscourt forehand return past Nadal for love-30! Verdasco has suddenly found a rich vein of form, and slots a line-kissing backhand winner down the line after a great rally! Nadal goes for a risky forehand down the line and it’s wide! Verdasco breaks to love — who saw that coming? What an impressive turnaround. He celebrates with a yell and a steely look at his box.

Third set: Nadal 2-2 Verdasco

The crowd is buzzing; they know that matches of such quality are few and far between.

Nadal ropes a forehand pass crosscourt for a clean winner — Verdasco’s been good with his approach shots this match but that last one wasn’t good enough. He serves well for 15-all, then crushes a giant inside-out forehand winner. A sweeping wide serve paints the line and defeats Nadal’s sliding, slicing return, which lands in the net. Another big serve completes the hold, and Verdasco is right back in the set.

Third set: Nadal 3-2 Verdasco

Verdasco lays into a Nadal second serve, banging a backhand winner down the line. He goes for another return winner, but his forehand is stopped by the top of the net. Misses like that are inevitable given Verdasco’s aggressive style this match, and another one arrives on the next point: an attempted inside-in forehand winner lands just wide. 30-15. Verdasco is still playing some great tennis, and he opens up the court enough to smack a crosscourt backhand winner. Now it’s Nadal feeling the strain; he had a 2-0 lead and his serve is now being threatened for a second straight time. He breathes a sigh of relief as Verdasco misses a second serve return, but an awful drop shot allows the 14th seed to amble forward and pat a winner. Deuce. Nadal sails a forehand long, and Verdasco has a break point to take the lead in this potentially crucial third set. The world number one saves it with a service winner, crying “Vamos!” as Verdasco’s return flies long. Nadal has a game point has Verdasco swings a forehand into the net, which he takes with another service winner. That was an important hold for Nadal; the pressure sways back to Verdasco now.

Third set: Nadal 4-2 Verdasco

Nadal is 2/11 on break points (Verdasco is 1/3), but I can recall at least five of them that Verdasco has saved with big serves or winners, and Nadal broke a string when returning on another. He’s been more opportunistic than the stats suggest.

Verdasco falls behind love-15 — he hits a great approach shot (a forehand down the line) but fails to position himself effectively for the volley, which sails wide and long. This is a crucial period in the set; Verdasco will really want to stay on serve here. He executes a bending crosscourt forehand winner beautifully for 15-all, but even that can’t compare to Nadal’s shot on the next point! He reads an inside-out forehand, flashing a pass down the line, then races forward to retrieve Verdasco’s drop volley. Somehow he gets there, and flicks the ball past the 14th seed! Marvelous. Verdasco evens the game at 30-all with deep hitting.

Nadal wins another spectacular rally! He’s pulled off the court, but blisters a forehand down the line that gets him back in the point, and finally Verdasco nets. Exhausting stuff — break point. Verdasco fires a forehand well long! Nadal is once again in control of the set.

Third set: Nadal 4-3 Verdasco

Verdasco simply refuses to let Nadal run away with this match. The top seed is well in control of the rally, courtesy of a dazzling line-kissing forehand, but Verdasco guesses correctly where Nadal is going with his attempted putaway, and drills a backhand winner down the line! He yells in triumph; this guy isn’t going anywhere for a while yet. He goes for the same shot at love-15, but it goes well long. Nadal nestles a backhand down the line of his own for a winner, right in the corner. 30-15. Verdasco pulls Nadal out of position with a massive, sweeping crosscourt forehand, and Nadal can’t recover. This is a chance for the 14th seed at 30-all, and he has a break point when Nadal makes an uncharacteristic unforced error with his forehand! This is just Verdasco’s fourth break point of the match, but he takes it with another backhand winner down the line, struck with amazing precision! He raises a fist to his box, followed by an open-hand celebration that he exchanges with his friend and father. His resilience has been remarkable so far.

Third set: Nadal 4-4 Verdasco

Nadal anticipates Verdasco’s approach shot, cracking a backhand winner down the line in a near mirror-image of the first point last game. A return error makes it 15-all, then Verdasco comes to net, cutting a low, well-angled volley. Nadal somehow reaches it, and his short lob is clearly going out, but Verdasco decides to play it anyway and hammers a smash winner. 30-all and a big moment in this game and the set. Verdasco goes on the attack, approaching the net again behind a vicious inside-out forehand, and bounces another smash into the seats for game point. Nadal does well to stay in the next rally, sneaking a low backhand slice over the net that barely bounces, forcing Verdasco to net a slice. More attacking tennis sees Verdasco reach advantage, and he holds with a service winner! Another huge momentum swing.

Third set: Nadal 5-4 Verdasco

Nadal nails a pair of service winners for 30-love, then Verdasco treats his first second serve of the game with contempt, crunching a pacy forehand return winner. The 14th seed is a little slow in reaching a Nadal inside-in forehand, though, and it ticks off the frame of his racket. They’ve been playing extremely physical tennis for over three hours now, and it’s impressive that neither player has really shown a dip in focus or quality yet. This match has been intense from the very first game.

Third set: Nadal 5-5 Verdasco

Verdasco failed to serve to stay in the set in the second, he’ll have to accomplish the task now, or else fall behind two sets to one. He had been up 40-15 before falling to a burst of brilliance from Nadal. A spectacular rally immediately takes place; Verdasco defends well and Nadal sends a forehand wide after at least 20 shots. A big serve and an error from the underdog make it 30-15, and Nadal evens the game with a great angled forehand that draws a yell of despair from his opponent. Verdasco must be feeling the nerves at 30-all, but you wouldn’t know it as he hits the corner of the service box with a wide delivery. Another massive serve secures the hold.

Third set: Nadal 6-5 Verdasco

Nadal forces an error with a sharply angled crosscourt forehand, then blasts an ace down the middle. He’s served well this match, especially under pressure. Verdasco tries to tee off on a second serve return but hits it wildly into the net: 40-love. Nadal double faults, trying to go for a big second serve — the time to double fault, if there is one, is at 40-love. Nadal holds with a gasp-inducing crosscourt forehand — what an angle.

Third set: Nadal 6-6 Verdasco

Verdasco, serving to stay in the third set once more, powers a service winner and an ace to reach 30-love. Nadal misses a second serve return — Verdasco unbalanced him with a slower second serve than usual. Three game points. Verdasco nets a forehand after a powerful return from Nadal, then seeks too ambitious of an angle on his backhand at it’s 40-30. The misses prove irrelevant as Verdasco crushes an ace down the middle. This third-set tiebreak will most likely decide the match.

Third set tiebreak: Nadal 1-0 Verdasco

Nadal pounds a service winner.

Nadal 1-1 Verdasco

Verdasco patiently rallies, then pounces on a slightly short Nadal groundstroke and scorches a forehand winner down the line.

Nadal 2-1 Verdasco

Verdasco badly overhits a forehand, ceding the first mini-break.

Nadal 3-1 Verdasco

A finely angled forehand from Nadal thwarts Verdasco, whose return dribbles into the net.

Nadal 4-1 Verdasco

Verdasco tries to line up a return winner on Nadal’s second serve, but hits it well long and wide.

Nadal 4-2 Verdasco

Verdasco stays in touch with a one-two punch, bashing an inside-out forehand winner.

Nadal 5-2 Verdasco

Nadal seizes a second mini-break; he is now firmly in control of this tiebreak. Verdasco loops a forehand wide.

Nadal 6-2 Verdasco

Nadal delivers an exceptional one-two punch, cutting an inside-out forehand winner at an incredibly sharp angle. Four set points.

Nadal wins the third set 7-6 (2)!

Nadal clubs an ace down the middle! He roars, beating his chest once. He politely asks umpire Jake Garner for a toilet break.

That was an incredibly important set. Verdasco’s unforced error count climbed in that set: 25 of them to 24 winners, but he showed incredible mental resilience to break back twice and stay in the set. He also made 70% of his first serves and converted 2/3 break points. Besides “make fewer errors”, there’s not much advice that would do him good, and his strategy — which has been an effective one — is to go for the lines, so the errors are a by-product of his winners.

Nadal did well to stave off a break point at 2-all, which could have sent him into a tailspin, and played a brilliant tiebreak. He hit 11 winners to seven unforced errors that set — he’s only made 17 unforced errors all match!

I don’t anticipate Verdasco folding, even though losing that set hurts him badly. He stayed in the match well in the third after falling behind 2-0, and now that his back is against the wall he may go for even more with his shots.

Federer, who is undoubtedly watching this match, is probably a bit intimidated at the outstanding form of both men and grateful for the incredible physicality of the match that’s likely to tire out the winner.

Fourth set: Verdasco 1-0 Nadal

Verdasco executes a great half-volley, landing deep in Nadal’s court, that sets him up for a putaway. Nadal responds by lashing a crosscourt forehand return winner for 15-all. Verdasco crushes an ace, and already the quality in this set is quite impressive. A service winner and another ace from Verdasco seal a fantastic hold. Four of the five points played that game were winners, and the fifth was an unreturned serve.

Fourth set: Verdasco 1-1 Nadal

Nadal begins this game with a double fault, his third of the match. Verdasco makes him feel the sting of the error by forcing him to net on the following point: love-30. Verdasco’s made an excellent start to the fourth set. Of course, right after I type that, he takes a wild, wild swing at a first serve return, sending the ball sailing out of play. Another missed return brings Nadal level at 30-all, and he pulls Verdasco off the court with a forehand, urging him to go for a winner. Verdasco does, and nets it. Nadal holds to 30 with an ace. Verdasco missed a big opportunity there.

Fourth set: Verdasco 2-1 Nadal

A Nadal backhand pass sees Verdasco err on a volley. He serves well for 15-all, but Nadal reads an approach and sweeps a forehand pass down the line for a clean winner. This is a huge moment at 15-30; Verdasco can’t afford to be broken here. He pounds a pair of huge serves, seeing daylight at 40-30, yet a netted backhand prolong the game. Verdasco shows clearheaded thinking under pressure, drawing Nadal to the net with a drop shot and stroking a swing volley past him. An errant forehand makes for deuce #2, though, and this game feels more important by the point. Verdasco fires a spectacular forehand behind Nadal, who was racing back into position. He roars. Nadal makes an astonishing get on the next point that keeps him in the rally, but he nets a forehand not five seconds later.

Fourth set: Verdasco 2-2 Nadal

The trainer is working on Verdasco’s left leg — this match has gone on for three hours and 40 minutes.

Verdasco slices into the net after a longish rally; there’s a bit of a sense that he’s tiring. He slices wide on the next point as well. He’s going to that shot more and more often, and it’s let him down. He doesn’t run for a Nadal backhand winner, then misses a slice on the run. Verdasco’s movement didn’t look great that game. Let’s hope there’s nothing serious going on.

Fourth set: Verdasco 3-2 Nadal

If Verdasco is tired and/or injured, his serve becomes doubly important. A service winner makes it 15-love, and a great second serve coaxes a missed return from Nadal. It’s 40-love with an ace, and a service winner completes a love hold.

He’s getting more treatment on the changeover — it appears that he’s now conserving energy to win his service games.

Fourth set: Verdasco 3-3 Nadal

Scratch that — Verdasco begins this game with a beautiful backhand return winner of Nadal’s first serve, directed down the line and hit with pace. Nadal makes it 15-all with a good serve, then gets to work moving Verdasco back and forth across the baseline — the 14th seed slices a forehand into the net, then crouches in exhaustion. Nadal catches Verdasco out of position, spinning an inside-in forehand winner, then holds with a good serve.

Fourth set: Verdasco 4-3 Nadal

Verdasco opens up the court with fierce forehands, then closes the net, slapping away a tough overhead. The feeling is that if Nadal can break here, it might break Verdasco’s spirit. Verdasco misses a forehand by inches, but puts away a volley for 30-15 after Nadal had returned his overhead. He crunches an angled crosscourt forehand winner — two game points — and crashes an inside-out forehand winner to hold. He is still a factor, though his best chance to win the set probably lies in a tiebreak, and he’ll have to hold serve twice more to get there.

Fourth set: Verdasco 4-4 Nadal

Nadal fires a service winner down the middle, Verdasco netting the return. He runs around his next return, crushing a deep crosscourt forehand for a winner. 15-all. Another big serve from Nadal is matched by another powerful return from Verdasco, this one forcing an error, and here’s the most pressured point on serve Nadal has faced in some time at 30-all. The world number one coolly unloads an ace down the middle for game point; his play on important points is really something else.

And that’s the point of the match! Nadal wins a scrambling, pirouetting, bizarre rally for 4-all! It begins when Nadal spins around at the back of the court after returning a forehand from Verdasco, who takes control of the point with two huge, heavy forehands, the second going down the line and tailing away from Nadal. The top seed somehow returns it, throwing up a lob, to which Verdasco responds by crouching at the net and hitting a smash with all the strength he can muster. Nadal, on the dead run, shovels the ball back, Verdasco hits a deep crosscourt forehand, and Nadal takes it right of the bounce, passing Verdasco cleanly with his own crosscourt forehand. The crowd is in hysterics; that was probably the point of the tournament!

Perhaps best of all: as soon as Verdasco was passed at net, he looked at Nadal with a disbelieving grin on his face. The world number one, who had raised a fist in celebration and is known not to smile on court, saw Verdasco grin and returned the smile with his fist pointed skyward. What a point, what a moment. And the match continues.

Fourth set: Verdasco 5-4 Nadal

Verdasco replies to Nadal’s heroics by slamming an inside-out forehand winner after a second serve, then overwhelming Nadal with pace until the world number one hits long. And there’s some magic from Verdasco! A frantic rally takes place, with each player scrambling to retrieve the opposition’s angles, Nadal sends Verdasco sprinting to his right with a biting slice, and Verdasco not only gets there, he cuts an absolutely gorgeous drop shot. It lands close to the net and takes a wicked bounce to the right. Nadal didn’t move for it, which tells you how good it was. The underdog bellows in celebration; he clearly still believes he can win. Verdasco holds with a hefty second serve. He couldn’t have responded better to the brilliant point at the end of the last game.

Fourth set: Verdasco 5-5 Nadal

Verdasco has a decent look at a forehand winner, but barrels it long. This match is into its fifth hour — Nadal has shown no signs of fatigue besides the sweat soaking his shirt and headband, and Verdasco seems to be willing to rally again. There was a slight lull in the middle of this fourth set, but the last few games have been tennis played at a near-celestial level. Nadal angles a backhand wide, lifting Verdasco to within three points of the third set. The 14th seed goes for a backhand return winner, hits it wide. He then overpowers Nadal with a huge crosscourt backhand, and jogs around the back of the court in celebration afterward. He’s two points from the set, but Nadal quickly wins the next point, landing a forehand on the baseline. He holds with an aggressive backhand.

Fourth set: Verdasco 6-5 Nadal

Verdasco sets up a one-two punch, pounding an inside-out forehand winner. He follows it with his first double fault of the semifinal, compared to 15 aces — not bad at all. But it puts him in a potentially awkward position at 15-all. Of course, he smashes an ace out wide, then another down the tee for 40-15. He now has 83 winners. Eighty-three! It’s just the fourth set! Nadal can’t do more than flap his racket at the next missile serve, and Verdasco holds. He’s earned himself at least a tiebreak.

Fourth set: Verdasco 6-6 Nadal

Verdasco pulls a forehand wide. If he falls behind in this game, it might be wise to let the game go and start thinking about the tiebreak. He nets a second serve return for 30-love. Nadal finds the line with a viciously angled forehand; Verdasco remains stock-still on the baseline. And it’ll be a third tiebreak as Verdasco misses a return.

Fourth set tiebreak: Verdasco 1-0 Nadal

Can’t start a tiebreak better than that! Verdasco patiently waits for the attackable ball, driving it to Nadal’s forehand. Nadal’s return is mishit, and lands on the left sideline. Verdasco drives it crosscourt at a crazy angle, sending Nadal scampering past the umpire’s chair. The world number one somehow slices it back, and Verdasco goes behind him, slotting a forehand winner into the corner. He clenches a fist, staring intently at his box.

Verdasco 2-0 Nadal

Verdasco bangs a big forehand return, Nadal can’t get it back!

Verdasco 3-0 Nadal

Wow! Verdasco returns deep, then unloads on a forehand winner down the line. He immediately yells in triumph, exchanging an open-hand celebration with his friend in his box, who is similarly excited. The atmosphere is electric at the moment.

Verdasco 4-0 Nadal

Verdasco works the point beautifully, finally coming to net and delicately dropping a short volley for a winner. He’s reaching new heights in this tiebreak, which is saying something.

Verdasco 5-0 Nadal

Nadal nets a forehand! This is unbelievable.

Verdasco 6-0 Nadal

Verdasco is playing like the world number one against the world number one. His shots are finding the lines as if missile-guided. Thinking with amazing clarity and hitting with brutal power, he slams a deep return, angles an inside-out backhand, then demolishes another forehand down the line, Nadal nowhere near the ball. Nadal and everyone in Rod Laver Arena, besides Verdasco, I think, are a bit stunned.

Verdasco 6-1 Nadal

Verdasco takes a massive cut at a Nadal first serve and it isn’t close to going in. That’s the time to try crazy shots though; that miss won’t cost him.

Verdasco wins the fourth set 7-6 (1)!

Verdasco smashes a huge serve down the middle that was never coming back. He screams, beating his chest all the way back to his chair. What a breathtaking tiebreak. Three forehand winners, a huge serve, a volley winner, and a deep return that forced an error. Nadal made one unforced error and no winners. Verdasco didn’t give him the opportunity to hit any.

This match could go either way. Nadal looked the stronger for much of the fourth set, but Verdasco found a level in the tiebreak that few have ever reached in their careers. He’s likely juiced up on adrenaline now, meaning he won’t have physical difficulties in the fifth set as he did in the fourth.

Verdasco hit 21 winners that set, and just nine unforced errors. He served at 70% and hit five aces. He didn’t see a single break point but he neutered that stat with what is surely one of the best performances in a tiebreak of all time.

Nadal needs to reset, and quickly. After such a devastating tiebreak, he needs to remind himself of patterns that work, and that he’s won two sets already. He made 80% of his first serves that set; it’s hard to do better than that. As with the first set, he did few things wrong (two aces, eight winners, four unforced errors), he was just rendered helpless as the Verdasco train rolled through the tiebreak.

He’s incredibly fit, and probably won’t be physically compromised in the fifth set. His challenges will be more mental than physical. Unquestionably, he has the game to win the decider.

What a match this has become. The fifth is yet to happen, but the first four sets have been on a par with the opening four frames of Wimbledon final last year for my money. Even if the fifth is a bagel, the first four sets alone will lift this match into the company of the best tennis contests ever.

Fifth set: Nadal 1-0 Verdasco

Nadal approaches the net — Verdasco’s forehand pass down the line carries some serious pace, but the world number one is ready for it and dinks a volley winner. He then pulls Verdasco out of position, forcing him to net a forehand. The 14th seed then returns long. An easy hold is just what Nadal needs, and an easy hold he gets when Verdasco returns long again (“Venga!”).

Fifth set: Nadal 1-1 Verdasco

Nadal defends well, repelling the Verdasco forehand fusillade, but a shot from the 14th seed is incorrectly called out, forcing them to replay the point. Verdasco sends a backhand wide — he has to be careful; he’s lost the first five points of the decider and Nadal has totally erased the fourth set tiebreak from his mind. Verdasco is in real trouble at love-30 as Nadal returns brilliantly, pounding a crosscourt forehand on the stretch that sails past his countryman for a winner. Verdasco overpowers Nadal with a forehand, then drills a crosscourt backhand that sees Nadal slice into the net. 30-all. The world number one takes advantage of a net cord, racing forward behind a slice and pounding an overhead away. Nadal pumps his fist. He looks utterly determined and it’s clear that Verdasco still has a mountainous task ahead of him. Break point. Verdasco closes the net, taking a major risk by directing his approach to Nadal’s forehand. The top seed’s pass sails down the line, past Verdasco…and misses by centimeters.

Nadal cracks a backhand down the line, drawing his grunt out in celebration, and he’ll have another break point. The quality is already spectacular in this fifth set. Verdasco, not ready to capitulate yet, crushes an ace to save the break point. Verdasco then does well to survive an onslaught from Nadal, who eventually nets a backhand. Both guys’ legs must be screaming at this point, even with the adrenaline of the moment. Verdasco serves big down the middle to hold. That was crucial.

Fifth set: Nadal 2-1 Verdasco

Nadal delivers back-to-back service winners. He then produces an amazing slice, which couldn’t have bounced more than a foot high, finishing the point well at net with a drop volley. He holds to love when Verdasco nets a forehand.

Verdasco is going to need all his resolve to win this, and even to make it close. Nadal hasn’t lost a point on serve yet, and was an inch away from taking a 2-0 lead.

Fifth set: Nadal 2-2 Verdasco

Verdasco could do with an easy hold here; Nadal’s quickly neutralized his momentum from the fourth set and has been the better player in the early stages of the fifth set.

He makes a good start with an ace out wide, then moves to 30-love with a service winner. Nadal’s groundstrokes are so sharp at the moment, which is why Verdasco’s serve is so crucial — he dominates a baseline rally, ending it with a well-angled forehand winner. Verdasco cleverly pulls Nadal to net with a drop shot, then ropes a clean backhand past him. He holds comfortably with a good serve.

Fifth set: Nadal 3-2 Verdasco

Nadal drives a forehand into the corner, then slices a delicate drop shot for a winner. He’s playing all the right shots. He just misses an attempted forehand winner — his first point lost on serve this set. Nadal serves well for 30-15, then slams an overhead winner for two game points. Verdasco goes for a forehand winner down the line and lifts it long. Nadal’s won 12 of 13 points on serve in the fifth set.

Fifth set: Nadal 3-3 Verdasco

Nadal misses a second serve return; misses like that have been scarce this set and this match. Verdasco pummels Nadal with groundstrokes — the top seed does well to stay in the rally — for 30-love. Verdasco sneaks a backhand wide, then Nadal outlasts him in the next rally and what appeared a simple game has become complicated at 30-all. Verdasco double faults! Break point for Nadal, his third of the set. As he’s done so many times this match, Verdasco thunders down a huge serve to save the break point. Another big serve gives Verdasco advantage, and he holds as Nadal mistimes a second serve return badly.

Fifth set: Nadal 4-3 Verdasco

Verdasco has been clutch this fifth set. Nadal has been the better player, but Verdasco’s done so well to hang in the set. Nadal forces Verdasco to hit long with a sharp inside-out forehand, then nails a forehand winner for 30-love. The 14th seed nets a backhand, and Nadal is poised for his fourth straight easy hold. Verdasco nets a second serve return, and he’s still won just one point on the return in the fifth.

Fifth set: Nadal 4-4 Verdasco

An epic point to start this game. The Spanish lefties trade forehands, pushing each other farther and farther off the court. Verdasco is the first to change direction and he wins the point at net. Nadal nets a forehand for 30-love. The 14th seed sends a forehand long, and he needs to be careful here — in his last service game he was pegged back from 30-love to break point. This game may be headed the same way; Verdasco doesn’t do enough at net and Nadal defeats him with a pass combination. This is a massive point at 30-all, and Verdasco nets a backhand! Nadal has a break point to serve for the match. Verdasco lands a big first serve and works his way into position to crack an enormous inside-out forehand winner. He has been so clutch on break points.

Verdasco swats a backhand long, and Nadal has another break point, but he lifts a forehand long! Verdasco’s saved five break points this set! Nadal slices wide, and Verdasco has a game point, which he takes with an ace!

This match is just unbelievable.

Fifth set: Nadal 5-4 Verdasco

Verdasco hits a great return, putting him on the front foot in the rally, and he forces Nadal to net after sending him scrambling around the baseline. He then overpowers Nadal with a barrage of pace, and he has love-30 for the first time in this set! Verdasco lifts a forehand wide under no pressure; how he’ll rue that miss. He then nets a second serve return! Nadal happily accepts Verdasco’s gifts, crunching an inside-out forehand and putting away an overhead. Game point. Nadal lashes a gorgeous forehand winner down the line to hold!

Any break point Verdasco faces this game will be a match point; he is serving to stay in the semifinal. This game will bring some extra pressure.

Rafael Nadal beats Fernando Verdasco 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (1), 6-4!

The crowd goes wild as the players come out to play this game. They’re getting their money’s worth and more: what a rally. Verdasco controls the initial stages with his backhand, then Nadal gets into the point, and finally Verdasco slices wearily into the net. Nadal return is deep, Verdasco’s shot is long, and Nadal is two points from victory at love-30.

Verdasco double faults!! That was so untimely; Nadal now has three match points. This is now the longest match in Australian Open history!

Verdasco saves the first match point with a swing volley winner. He saves the second match point with a swing volley winner.

Verdasco double faults! What an unfortunate way for this match to end. Nadal falls to his back, Verdasco falls to his knees, and they meet on Verdasco’s side of the court. They have a lovely exchange, presumably Nadal is apologizing that someone had to lose, and Verdasco is wishing Nadal good luck in the final.

Verdasco walks off the court to huge cheers. He is surely devastated, but hopefully he knows that he has delivered a performance that will make tennis fans talk about in reverential tones for years. He hit 95 winners (almost 24 games’ worth of winners), including 20 aces, was 2/4 on break points, and landed 69% of his first serves. He played tennis that could easily be considered godly in the fourth set tiebreak.

And Nadal shows once again why he is the best player in the world. Despite not having a particularly powerful serve, he was dominant on serve in the fifth set, as he was in the 2008 Wimbledon final. Given that he didn’t seem to struggle too much physically this match, he is very much still a threat to win the final, though he will be an underdog.

A Brief Analysis

It’s very rare that a tennis match doesn’t have a lull. This match achieved that unusual quality. Each set could have gone either way — even in the second and fifth sets, during which Verdasco never had a break point, he had love-30 on Nadal’s serve late in the set.

Verdasco unquestionably played the match of his career (to slip into the present for a moment, he hasn’t reproduced this quality since). It’s rare, again, that a player delivers the match of their life and loses anyway. Such is the power of Rafael Nadal’s game and mind.

Nadal demonstrates again his prowess in deciding sets. As with the 2008 Wimbledon final, he was the lighter server by some distance, but took care of his service games far more easily. After losing a brutal fourth set, his play early in the fifth hinted that he was focused entirely on the points he was playing, not lost rallies in the past. He generated break points in every return game except one in the fifth set, while winning 12 of his first 13 points on serve in the decider.

Nadal made 73% of his first serves during the 2008 Wimbledon final, and he made 74% in this match. He is a big match player.

Was this match better than the 2008 Wimbledon final? In terms of stakes, historical importance, and stylistic appeal, no. But in terms of tennis, very possibly. Out of the 385 points played, 147 ended with a winner (38.2% of points), while at the Wimbledon final in 2008, 149 of 413 points played ended in a winner (36.1%). In this semifinal, both players were near the top of their games for virtually the entire time, whereas the Wimbledon final had some dips by each player (in the second set, for instance, when Nadal fell behind 4-1 and Federer lost the next five games in a row, making several unforced errors). Each time Verdasco lost his serve, it took a huge effort from Nadal (bar the last game of the match), and when Nadal was broken back twice in the third, it was more down to Verdasco’s great returning than his own errors — the 14th seed hit two winners in each game he broke serve in the third set (and that’s leaving out errors he forced from Nadal).

So, putting it all together, I think that this match produced quality that is at least as high as any men’s contest that’s taken place.

Thanks for reading! If you have feedback or questions (always welcome), feel free to leave a comment or tweet @tennisnation. I hope everyone out there is staying safe!

Why is it So Difficult to Back Up a Big Three Upset?

By Owen Lewis

Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal have combined to win the last 13 major titles, as well as 56 out of the last 67, stretching all the way back to Wimbledon in 2003 (when Federer won his first major title). Each player has suffered their fair share of upsets, though. Lower-profile players like Steve Darcis, Sergiy Stakhovsky, and Denis Istomin have earned moments in the sun through shocking defeats of the three best male tennis players ever.

Yet the wild burst of success rarely lasts. Much of the time, the legend-slaying player loses in the very next round of the major tournament. Nadal has lost in 39 times in majors (including retirements but not walkovers), and 17 of those times, his conqueror fell in the following round. After winning his first major, he has 33 recorded losses in slams, so the percentage of unsustained upsets is even greater after the Spaniard claimed his first major victory. Nadal has lost in a major to the eventual champion just nine times (five times to Djokovic, three times to Federer, and once to Stanislas Wawrinka, so when this happens, it isn’t as if Nadal is always the heavy favorite).

Federer has lost 59 matches in slams — for better relevance, after winning the 2003 Wimbledon, he has lost 42 times in majors. On 15 of those occasions, the player he lost to was defeated in the following round. Federer has lost in a major to the eventual winner 19 times, but 15 of those times, the victor has been Djokovic or Nadal.

Djokovic, after winning the 2008 Australian Open, has lost 31 times in majors. He has lost to the eventual champion 13 times, 8 of which were to Federer or Nadal. The other five were to Stanislas Wawrinka or Andy Murray, who are tied at three majors for the most of any active player besides the Big Three.

There are many explanations for it being extremely challenging to back up a big upset. The top players, even in defeat, often drag the winner to a fifth set, as Nadal did to Gilles Müller in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2017. Nadal came back to even the match from two sets down, then saved several match points in the fifth before finally succumbing 13-15 in the decider. The match lasted over four hours, and Müller’s next match went to five sets as well. He lost the final set 6-1, which is no surprise given his marathon fourth round defeat of Nadal.

Mental fatigue can prove just as tough to overcome as physical exhaustion. For many, beating one of the Big Three in a major is the biggest win of their careers, and it’s a big ask to come down from the emotional high and reset for the next round.

Additionally, to beat Federer, Djokovic, or Nadal typically requires a fantastic performance. When one of the Big Three loses to a lower-ranked player, it’s often because the underdog has produced the best performance of their career. Replicating that in the following rounds borders on unsustainable.

Occasionally, someone will pull off a shocking upset and manage to maintain their success. At the 2014 Australian Open, world number eight Wawrinka beat Djokovic in a five-set quarterfinal, then took out seventh-ranked Tomáš Berdych in the semifinals. Top-ranked Nadal badly injured his back in the final, but Wawrinka was able to overcome the physical and mental strain of the previous rounds to complete the victory. Still, Wawrinka was ranked #8, so while these were upsets, they weren’t earth-shatteringly so.

At the 2009 U.S. Open, sixth seed Juan Martín del Potro beat #3 Nadal in the semifinals before going on to defeat world number one Federer to win his first major. But again, del Potro was high-ranked at that point. Furthermore, Nadal was playing with an abdominal tear and del Potro won very comfortably: 6-2, 6-2, 6-2. Such a lopsided scoreline doesn’t often carry the aforementioned physical and mental strain, and del Potro came into the final fresh.

Much of the time the next opponent after a Big Three member is another imposing foe. Those who are low-ranked enough for their wins to be considered massive upsets are in difficult sections of the draw, and don’t get an easier match in the following round. John Millman defeated Federer in the fourth round of the 2018 U.S. Open, only to run into Djokovic the next round, who was seeded sixth at the time. Some reward for the biggest win of Millman’s career (Djokovic beat him in straight sets).

The Big Three have won the vast majority of majors in recent years, and running into one in a major draw is typically a death sentence for a low-ranked player — even if they win. The redlining of their game as well as the physical and mental intensity more often than not is too difficult to sustain for the rest of the tournament. Regardless, such upsets can be the highest point of the giant-killer’s career, and they can provide an electric atmosphere as the result seems in doubt. Upsets are a part of tennis; on any given day a player ranked #50 can take out the top seed (though it’s very unlikely), but that makes it no easier to beat the other players looming later in the draw.

Thanks for reading! Wash your hands, practice social distancing, and stay safe!