What was that at the US Open? I believe they call it…sun. The rain started Thursday night, washed out play on Friday, and washed out most of the day on Saturday. One wondered if any match would be played on the final weekend. Finally, finally, the sun came out and a full day of play could finally be played.
Juan Martin del Potro had beaten Nadal twice on hard courts, once as recently as a few weeks ago in Montreal where he handed a 6-0 set to Nadal. Still, one wondered if Nadal might not pull out some magic like he did in an electrifying match against Gael Monfils, which saw both men try to bludgeon each other. Nadal hit well, ran well, and competed well. If this Nadal showed up to the semifinals, then del Potro would have his hands full.
The first sign of danger came in the quarterfinals where Nadal played two tiebreak sets against Gonzalez. Gonzalez is a player that Nadal has owned lately. Despite his fearsome forehand, Gonzalez is a streaky player. When he is on, Gonzalez’s backhand almost disappears. He can hit winners from all over the court. However, Nadal knows how to play Gonzalez and forces him to move around to hit his shots. Gonzalez never quite gets the rhythm he needs to win because Nadal can make Gonzalez hit 3, 4 more shots than he wants to hit, which makes Gonzalez more and more reckless. It happened again on Saturday when Gonzalez fell apart, losing 6-0 in the third set. The match might have been winnable had the rains not come. Nadal had aggravated his abs and was not faring too well. Nadal is as tough as they come, however, and he still probably could have squeezed out a straight set win.
Although Nadal got some rest due to the rain and the short conclusion of the Gonzalez match, playing Juan Martin del Potro would be a difficult task. Even a fully healthy Nadal (as healthy as Nadal can get, which means he is still suffering from some pain) finds a del Potro hard to handle. del Potro had played a game Cilic and didn’t focus right away. He dropped a set before he began to impose himself in three sets. del Potro wanted to focus from start to end to beat Nadal.
And it wasn’t even close.
Not even.
Nadal looked flummoxed trying to handle del Potro who now possesses one of the game’s biggest serve, and makes a good argument for its most lethal forehand. Unlike Gonzalez, del Potro never seems out of control. He hits big shot but it’s within his game. It’s not the go-for-broke style that Gonzalez and Monfils played. The only comfort Nadal could take was that he wasn’t 100%, and that once he gets his health back (expect Nadal to again take another extended break to heal up) to play del Potro more competitively.
Today, Nadal made 27 unforced errors. On a good day, Nadal makes half as many errors. 27 errors is typical for most players in straight sets, but for Nadal, it’s amazingly high. Was it due to Nadal’s serve? Did he serve weaker than he normally does? Pace-wise, the stats say no. Nadal was serving the same average speed throughout all his matches, serving around 107 mph on first serves and about 85 mph on the second. It may have affected how much spin he was able to apply. Either way, del Potro seemed to feast on Nadal’s serve while Nadal struggled to handle del Potro’s serve.
It’s sad that Nadal took time off to to recover from one injury only to sustain a different injury that affected his chances to play the finals. But it’s great news for del Potro who has shown a great deal of improvement in his game since he first broke big onto the scene, last year, prior to the US Open. If Nadal were healthier, he can still be competitive with del Potro, at least, one assumes he can. If this win is a sign of things to come, then it really signals a changing of the guard. It will be intriguing to see whether he’s going to make that leap at the expense of Federer or Djokovic.
The other men’s semifinals will start at 4:30 PM.
