Frances Tiafoe, unknown because he had never raised such a severe or prolonged stake before, sentenced and fulfilled the threat: 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 and 6-3, after 3h 34m. In other words, she lowers Rafael Nadal after this adverse New York journey for the Spaniard, who has lacked spark and game in the second round, and also tranquility during his stay in the Americas. “There are times when you can handle everything and others when you can’t. I’ve tried”, summarizes the man from Manacor, stumbled since his landing in Flushing Meadows for issues that go beyond problems with the serve (due to the abdominal) or the better or worse shooting of him. He was, but he wasn’t.
Nadal falls – he has not done it on this scale of a great since the elimination against Gilles Müller in 2017 – and the option of a fifth trophy in Flushing Meadows vanishes. Nor will the minimum gap between him grow (22 majors) and Novak Djokovic (21). Number one, moreover, remains up in the air: if Carlos Alcaraz – quoted with Marin Cilic this morning – or Casper Ruud rise to the top or reach the final, it will be theirs.
Tiafoe warned that now he was prepared to tip Nadal, that he was “much better” than that tennis player who could barely tickle the Balearic Islands in the two previous ones -Australia and Madrid in 2019, immaculate triumphs- and that he was going to go with everything to for his rival. What sounded like bravado translates this Monday into reality. The American (26th in the world, 24 years old) charges from the beginning; forceful, but with that dose of cold blood and knowing how to be that he needs to multiply a tennis that is having a hard time maturing. He has power and physicality, aggressiveness and punch, but so far he has lacked pause, packing and reading on his journey. This time he is different.
Resounding at the service, he navigates comfortably through the game and does not offer a single crack. The dialectic ordeal of two nights ago was not talk. Nadal frowns quickly, aware that he has a bone in front of him that poses a labyrinthine crossing and that he does not open the door or to renew the overloaded atmosphere of the Arthur Ashe. The entire first set passes without affording a single break option and, instead, the American hits the first one he has. Tiafoe lacked finesse and wasted a clear volley with 3-3 and 0-30 in his favor in the first set; he passes that train, but gets on the next one. seventh game. An intelligent stone to the feet in the rest grants him the break.
“Try sending yourself!”, they tell Nadal from the bench, demanding that he step forward and take charge because the opponent goes on and on and on at cruising speed. Tiafoe does not decline. The champion of 22 majors has a hard time, he doesn’t find holes and he doesn’t completely free his right either, a necessary way to counteract the firm bet of the North American and try to rule the match. However, his game is strewn with gravel. Lack of sharpness, lack of strength. And it is a twisted afternoon, one of those that require patience and put up with the guy; It is only possible to hold on and resist, avoid false steps because everything is decided in an even game of balances.
Each exchange is a world, a debate directed from the funds. And in an instant of indecision, Nadal guesses the crack, strikes cunningly and manages to win a hole that is gold. “When things go wrong, the ball is thrown to the center”, he recalled three days ago, after taking down Fabio Fognini. This tournament has required him to row against the tide from the start – comebacks against Rinky Hijikata and the Italian – and despite Saturday’s invigorating evening against Frenchman Richard Gasquet, he hardly manages to find any respite. There is no calm, but suddenly a gift falls. At 5-4 in the second, Tiafoe first draws the break with a acebut immediately undone thanks to a double fault.
“You’re better now!” One of his technicians, Marc López, encourages the Spaniard. The tone improves but the story continues to be a full-fledged you-to-you because despite the slip at the end of that sleeve, the rival does not wrinkle in the least. Tiafoe believes it. He says it on his face, his gestures abound and his proposal affects: not a step back. Not a trace of that cyclothymia that clouded his projection. He was aiming too high, he got stuck in no man’s land and now he’s trying to get credit back. The attack against Nadal is a good argument. To the seventh game again, another lunge. He closes with a backhand parallel to the angle and puts another first-class port ahead again. He will not lose. You have to beat him.
The Spaniard retires back to the locker room. He has already done so after conceding the first set, eight minute break, but now he returns without the bandage on his wrists that he had requested earlier. On the way back he meets a hungry player who attacks the one he can again and forces him to put out the fire in the first game of the room. He goes with all Tiafoe, corners him. It wasn’t a lantern. The judge orders the closure of the roof because the day is accompanied by intermittent rains and from the box Nadal hears a couple of screams. First Carlos Moyà: “Coffeeeeeee!”. And his father Sebastià repeats: “Cafééééé!”.
There is a stimulus and Nadal counterattacks, scratching a break that tastes like glory (3-1) but that is reduced to a mere trompe l’oeil. Tiafoe lets out a couple of outbursts and charges again. He repels and finishes. This is how this complicated route of the Balearic Islands ends in this US Open, which began stumbled and ends in the same way.
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