Of course, he did beat Andy Murray and Gael Monfils in consecutive three-setters to win the Monte Carlo Masters, but Nadal does seem a bit unsure on the big points – like he did at 6-6 in the fifth set tiebreak against Pouille after saving three match points.
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“He’s moving so well”, Pouille said.
“I really played the ideal point there”, the sixth-seeded Williams said about her chance to end things while up 5-4 in the third set, and Pliskova serving at 30-40, “and she managed to stay alive”.
The match was everything a neutral observer could hope for as well.
This loss snaps a brilliant 12-year run for Nadal who has made the quarter final of every Grand Slam he has played in.
The young Frenchman, however, refused to go away, breaking back and sending the match to a fifth-set tiebreaker. The biggest problem with assessing where exactly Nadal is in his 30th year, after so many struggles, is the fact that it’s hard to know with all his physical problems. He was eliminated in the first round of the Australian Open this past year, and a wrist injury forced him to drop out of the French Open before the third round and forgo Wimbledon altogether.
In his way, stands the new kid on the block, 22-year-old Pouille, who after beating Nadal in a thrilling four-hour, five-set affair, is ready to make some more noise at Flushing Meadows. Her opponent Tuesday, Anastasija Sevastova, had never won four straight matches at any major until now and was retired for almost two years before returning at the start of last season.
“I fought until the end”.
Novak Djokovic steamed into the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 victory against 84th-ranked Briton Kyle Edmund. Pouille though came up with impressive performances as he defeated higher-ranked opponents Juan Martin Del Potro and Bernard Tomic enroute to the last-eight round.
Rafael Nadal’s USA open upset pushes the Spaniard to do some thinking about his career but he promises that this will not be the end.
“I need something else”, Nadal said.
“The wrist is better”, he said this past week.
The photo oversight was corrected by tournament organisers, but they can be slightly forgiven because until the start of previous year, Sevastova was officially a former player.
“I don’t know. This is the question you’re going to ask me now?” a smiling Vinci said good-naturedly.
“He’s a player that has all the shots”.
He already was ahead 6-4, 4-3 when a brief shower led organizers to shut Ashe’s $150 million cover that is making its debut this year. “I think they’re all unbelievable, incredible. I am sad”, Nadal added.
“It was one of the greatest matches I play”, Monfils said.
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“I need to play a lot of tennis to be back where I was before the injury, but in terms of energy, I was great”. Angelique Kerber won a battle of grand slam champions when the second seed powered her way into the quarter-finals of the US Open yesterday with a 6-3 7-5 win over Petra Kvitova. Baghdatis defended himself to the chair umpire by asking whether it was against the rules to check the time; later, speaking to a handful of reporters, he said he was trying to message his wife. Pouille will face his countryman Monfils in the quarterfinals.
