Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal are two terrific champions who have won multiple major tournaments - Serena 21 and Nadal 14. At various times over the last decade, both have dominated their sport, but at this major event their fortunes appeared to have reversed. Serena is in hot pursuit of victories in all four major tournaments in 2015, and Nadal has lost in all of them.
For the first time since he began winning majors in 2004, Nadal will go a calendar year without winning a single major tournament. That unkind distinction was confirmed when No. 32 Fabio Fognini came from two sets down to upset Nadal 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, in a heavyweight slugfest in the US Open tennis championship.
It had begun 3 hours 39 minutes earlier as Nadal followed Serena out under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium for the second time this week. Unlike Serena, Nadal has not had a very good year, but this result was more about a fantastic comeback fashioned by Fognini than anything Nadal did wrong. "It's something incredible I did today," Fognini said.
Both men competed to their limits, and perhaps a little beyond. They ran and fought, pounding grounds strokes at one another and electrifying an audience that grew increasingly loud even as it thinned out because of the hour.
On the final stroke, an errant backhand by Nadal that went wide, Fognini stood behind the baseline with his hands on his hips, knowing that for the first time since the clock had turned to Saturday morning, he would not have to do any more running. It was not a look of elation for such a hard-earned victory, but more one of relief. He stood there for a moment, looked around, and then met Nadal at the net to shake hands after they had played 306 points.
It was the first time Nadal had lost a match after winning the first two sets, which some may see as the latest indication of his faltering form. But it took a signature performance by Fognini to make it happen. "It was not a match that I lost," Nadal said. "Even if I had opportunities, it's a match that he won."
"By the way," Nadal pointed out at about 2:15 a.m. Saturday, "for me, it is amazing to win, 10 years in a row, a Grand Slam. I think nobody did it. You can imagine how difficult it is to make that happen."
He added that he would "accept that this was not my year and keep fighting until the end of the season to finish in a positive way."
"He played great," said Nadal. "I'm not happy he played better than me, but that's what happened."
In the fourth round, Fognini will play Feliciano Lopez, who beat Milos Raonic in straight sets. First, after his grueling encounter with Nadal, he will require some rest. "He starts running from the beginning," Fognini said of Nadal, "and he runs until the end of the week."
Indeed, Nadal is one of the great defensive players of all time, but it seemed at times as if Fognini was controlling him with a stick.
During the first two sets, the fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium, assuming Nadal was on his way to a quick victory, supported Fognini, if only to keep the action alive. Once he gained the momentum, the fans shifted their allegiance toward Nadal. But by the end of the final set, they were simply cheering every remarkable shot, acknowledging the determination and skill of both men, saluting their stamina and enjoying a compelling display of guts.
It was an odd final set, with seven consecutive service breaks until Fognini finally held at the end. Serving at 2-1, 15-0, Fognini and Nadal traded 16 shots across the net before Nadal finally put it away, responding with his loudest fist-pump of the set to that point. Three points later, Nadal hit a screaming backhand down the line for a winner and a break of serve and celebrated by clenching his fists at his side and screaming with his eyes closed.
When Nadal allowed Fognini to break right back and go ahead by 3-2, it seemed catastrophic. But Nadal did the same right back to even the set, 3-3, and then Fognini broke back again, winning the final point with a clever sliced backhand drop shot when Nadal was expecting another high-octane ground stroke that would force him back across the court the other way.
By the final game, there was nothing cute about it. Both men just hit as hard as they could, until Nadal, going to extremes to run around his backhand to punch a forehand, made the last mistake in an amazingly even match. It was the 154th point Fognini had won. Nadal won 152.
NYT News Service
