In tennis, if you want to be the best of the best, you must achieve a level of consistency. Your game must be consistently good day after day, week after week.
This may be the reason a player as hard hitting as Gonzalez has never moved much higher than about 10 in the world. Possessing one of the best forehands in the game, Gonzalez can dominate a match by powering his forehand to the corners. Arguably, when he’s on, it’s the best forehand in the game. (One might point to Federer or to Juan Martin del Potro as other hard-hitters with exemplary forehands).
When Nadal played Gonzalez Thursday evening, the two played surprisingly even. The first set went to a tiebreak with no breaks of serve, which Nadal won. The second set was halted with Nadal up 3 points to 2. Perhaps one reason the match was so even was Nadal’s abdominal injury which was aggravated in the first set. You have to hand it Nadal. He guts out matches regardless of how much pain he’s in. And he doesn’t need a huge serve to win matches.
Gonzalez had to hope that the rest would allow he and his coach, Martin Rodriguez, to figure out a way to beat Nadal, which has been a tall order for Gonzalez who has not even won a set in his last 5 losses to the Mallorcan.
Perhaps the worse possibly outcome was what happened today. Nadal went on to win 4 points in a row to close out the second set, 7-2. Gonzalez wanted to start off aggressively and instead completely imploded. Nadal, for his part, gave Gonzalez opportunities to miss. He did something a bit unusual, occasionally feeding Gonzalez some junk, and Gonzalez seemed unable to keep the balls in play. He threw his racquet down in total frustration.
And as quickly as the match started, it ended, in a flurry of errors that lead to a 6-0 win for Nadal. Not the ending Gonzalez had hoped for, but the ending that Nadal could barely have hoped in his wildest dreams. Nadal barely works up a sweat, and can get rehab for his abs to maximize his chances of beating Juan Martin del Potro. Nadal’s healthy will have very much to do with how he does against del Potro. If he plays like he did against Monfils, this could be a very competitive match. If his abs start to bother him, del Potro might win quickly. del Potro, for his part, will hope he can get out to a faster start. He felt he started slowly against Cilic before reaching his stride.
Tomorrow, the first semis will be played at noon. It’s not entirely clear who will play the early match, but given Federer’s preference to play early and Nadal’s preference to play later, it’s likely the Federer-Djokovic match will start at noon, and the Nadal-del Potro match will be played at 4 PM.
With the tournament winding down, with the possible exception of Andy Murray, the semifinalists are not too surprising. It wasn’t entirely clear that Nadal was going to make the semifinals, but he’s played tough. del Potro was perhaps, after Andy Murray, the guy who was playing the best this summer, with the oddity of his loss of conditioning to Murray and having to drop out of Cincinnati. Federer is, of course, Federer. All he does is reach semifinals. Djokovic, on the other hand, is certainly capable of reaching the latter rounds, and the likelihood was, after a season of disappointment, Djokovic would make a push on his favorite surface.
Tomorrow ought to be pretty exciting with Djokovic trying to turn around his recent loss to Federer, and del Potro trying to show if he’s got the game to beat Nadal, who is trying to win his own career Slam.
