MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Rafael Nadal entered the Australian Open quarterfinals with a record 223-1 by winning the first two sets of a Grand Slam match.
Thanks to his own mistakes – and some vigorous play by Stefanos Tsitsipas – that mark is now 223-2.
A pair of unusually sloppy overheads and a backhand framed in a tie from the third set started Nadal’s downfall, and his bet here for the 21st men’s main championship ended on Wednesday with 3-6, 2-6, 7-6 (4 ), 6-4, 7-5 loss to the younger and sharper Tsitsipas.
“It was a little bit of everything, wasn’t it? I lost a few balls in the tie that I shouldn’t – that I couldn’t – lose if I wanted to win. That’s it, ”said Nadal, who briefly left the Spanish part of his press conference after the match after tightening the cramp in the tendon in his right thigh.
“I have to go home,” said Nadal, “and practice to be better.”
In his best game of putting the ball where he wants it at the beginning, Nadal went ahead quite easily, earning 27 consecutive points on his serve in one stretch and executing his sequence of consecutive sets won in major tournaments for 35, a timid record from Roger Federer to the professional era.
Nadal and Federer are tied for 20 Grand Slam titles, more than any other man in the history of a sport dating from the late 19th century.
But Tsitsipas never wavered and Nadal’s surprisingly bad tie – thinking ahead, perhaps? – helped deliver the third set and start the epic comeback.
“I started out very nervous, I’m not going to lie,” said fifth-placed Tsitsipas. “But I don’t know what happened after the third set. I just flew like a bird. Everything was working for me. The emotions in the end are indescribable. “
While Tsitsipas played, in Nadal’s estimation, a “very, very high level of tennis” in the last two sets, the 34-year-old Spaniard’s game dropped considerably.
Nadal made a total of only 10 unforced errors in the first two sets combined, then 32 the rest of the way – 11 in the third, 14 in the fourth, seven in the fifth.
The only other occasion that Nadal went from a two-set lead to a Slam loss was at the 2015 United States Open against Fabio Fognini (who happened to lose to Nadal in the fourth round at Melbourne Park this year).
So now, instead of Nadal trying to overtake Federer, it will be Tsitsipas – a 22-year-old Greek with a flashy game – who will face 2019 U.S. Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev in the semifinals on Friday.
Neither Tsitsipas nor Medvedev won a Grand Slam tournament.
In the other men’s semifinal, the 17-time champion and No. 1 in the ranking Novak Djokovic will face 114th ranked Aslan Karatsev, who is making his Grand Slam debut.
The women’s semifinals on Thursday (Wednesday night EST) are Serena Williams vs. Naomi Osaka and Jennifer Brady vs. Karolina Muchova.
Nadal won the 2009 Australian Open, but is the only major who has not won at least twice, with 13 titles at Roland Garros, four at the United States Open and two at Wimbledon.
“Sometimes things are going well,” said Nadal, “and sometimes things are going worse.”
He arrived at the first major tournament this year with doubts about his back, citing this as his reason for dropping out of the ATP Cup team competition that preceded the Australian Open and saying the problem prevented him from practicing properly for about three weeks.
But Nadal said after the defeat to Tsitsipas that his back was no problem.
Nadal did not give up a set in Melbourne Park for four games; he also won all 21 sets he played at the French Open last year, where he won his 20th Slam trophy (Williams is 23, Margaret Court 24).
Federer has not competed for more than a year, after two knee operations.
With seagulls screaming providing a strange nighttime soundtrack at Rod Laver Arena – but without spectators, because they were banned during a local COVID-19 blockade and will not return until Thursday – Nadal always had an answer to anything Tsitsipas tried at the beginning.
Rush the network? Here comes an angled pass shot. Exit at the baseline? Good luck trying to beat Nadal from there.
It looked like it could be a repeat of the 2019 semifinal in Australia, when Nadal defeated Tsitsipas and allowed him to win just six games.
But this time, Tsitsipas came in after three full days off, because the man he was supposed to face in the fourth round, No. 9 Matteo Berrettini, gave up with an abdominal injury.
That – and a 12-year age difference – may have contributed to Tsitsipas being more refreshed in the end, as he played for more than four hours. Tsitsipas, who has been touted as a future star for years, almost got that kind of shock against Djokovic in the French Open semifinals in October, ranging from two sets to a fifth.
Tsitsipas was unable to close the deal at that time.
He did against Nadal.
Tsitsipas finally moved out of the way 6-5 in the fifth, breaking in love when Nadal missed in a series of kicks, then took the win by converting his third match point with a backhand goal.
“I’m speechless. I have no words to describe what happened on the court, ”said Tsitsipas. “It is an incredible feeling to be able to fight at such a level and just be able to give my all on the court.”