Juan Martin del Potro came from a set down to beat Rafael Nadal in a pulsating semi-final and book a gold medal match against Andy Murray at Rio 2016.
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Watch 2016 Rio Olympics tennis men’s singles: Andy Murray vs Juan Martin del Potro live via NBC.
If Nadal, who has been struggling with a frequent wrist injury in recent years, wins the gold he would become the first player since 1924 to triumph in both the men’s singles and doubles at a single Games.
Del Potro should be better rested than Nadal but perhaps not in a better mood.
“He’s the favorite for sure”, del Potro said. It is obviously a hard thing to do; hence nobody has ever done it before. “Hopefully I can run like I did today”.
While Del Potro ranks 141st in the world, he has had success in the past. But instead of another medal of that color, he will be trying to go home with a bronze now by beating Nishikori on Sunday – not bad, considering he missed 2½ months with an injured left wrist.
Murray served his way to an unexpectedly straightforward victory, winning arguably the point of the tournament to set up a third match point.
After taking a mini-break with the first point of the breaker, Del Potro failed to serve out on match point at 6-4 after another epic point, but Nadal put a forehand wide when serving to stay in it to bring an end to an epic tussle.
In the tiebreaker, del Potro went up 5-2 with – what else? – a forehand victor, then earned a pair of match points with a 127 miles per hour ace.
“I gave it all I had”, Nadal said, “and the only thing left to do is to congratulate del Potro for his victory”.
The most memorable moment of Murray’s straightfoward win over Nishikori came right at the end.
That gave Murray his third match point, which he converted with a service victor. He yanked off his white hat and bellowed.
“Bit of a lucky shot”, Murray said. “I didn’t even see it land, so I didn’t know whether it was in or not”.
Cape Town – Rafa Nadal and Marc Lopez won gold for Spain in the Olympic men’s doubles event and the Spaniard insists his intention was never just to travel to Rio as a flag bearer.
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After almost going out in the third round against Italian Fabio Fognini and then almost exiting at the hands of American Steve Johnson at the quarter final stage, Murray booked his place in the showpiece by powering past Japan’s Kei Nishikori.
