But Nishikori battled, saved all set points and won six points on the bounce including the final point to progress to the semifinals 7-6 (6).
Advertisement
Argentinian Del Potro was heavily supported by the South American crowd in Brazil but, despite his best efforts, couldn’t defeat world number two Andy Murray. “Today was a very up and down match, very stressful”. Del Potro did not give Nadal a chance during the match-tying second frame.
He said: “It’s obviously been hard, I’ve been in tough positions after great starts and I was close to going out”. I knew that I wasn’t stepping in. I lost quite a few Grand Slam finals.
“It would mean a lot to me”.
A 2009 US Open champion and London 2012 bronze medallist, Del Potro’s silver medal signifies his continued return to form, with his past three seasons disrupted by a wrist injury.
“I’ll try and keep going”.
They nearly went to a fifth set, too, because del Potro served for the fourth at 5-4, but was broken there, then again in the final game.
But each time he faltered and Murray pounced.
The Argentine beat the Spaniard 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 – including an epic tie-breaker in the final set – to advance to the final against Andy Murray.
The players traded service breaks and blazing passing shots in the final set but Murray showed steady nerves to win the tiebreak, closing out the hardcourt match with a deftly placed overhead smash.
Andy Murray is the first man to win Olympic singles tennis gold on two occasions.
Venus won singles gold at Sydney in 2000 and doubles titles with sister Serena in 2000, 2008 and 2012.
Michael Phelps has won his 22nd gold medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics on Thursday, while he looks to add more to that until Saturday.
I’m struggling with this one because Nadal spent so much energy in his loss, which not only makes it tough to bounce back mentally but also physically, as he has to be exhausted. Safarova and Strycova had defeated three-time champions Serena and Venus Williams in the first round but were beaten by Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in the semi-final.
In the first women’s singles semi-final of the Games, Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig beat Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic for a spot in the gold-medal match.
She and Swiss partner Timea Bacsinszky lost to Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina 6-4, 6-4.
He said: “You win a big match tomorrow, you’re guaranteed a medal, but, as a tennis player, you’re not used to losing then coming back the next day and trying to win”.
Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – Kei Nishikori won Japan’s first Olympic tennis medal in nearly a century on Sunday when he captured bronze against Rafael Nadal, despite the tired Spaniard mounting a stirring mid-match fightback.
Advertisement
The 30-year-old Nadal has already played nine matches at the Olympics in his pursuit of double gold.
