By Chris Oddo | Tuesday September 4, 2018
In the city that never sleeps Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem battled till closing time in a New York thriller that can only be summed up as epic.
It’s a word (epic this, epic that, ya da ya) that gets busted out all too often after five-set matches, but on this occasion, after Nadal edged Thiem 0-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-7(4), 7-6(5) in four hours and 49 minutes, no other adjective would suffice.
"What is important about this match is the level of tennis, the dramatic match," Nadal told reporters after the match. "When the things happens like this, the atmosphere and the crowd became more special. People get involved. Yeah, have been a great match, great atmosphere there. Happy to be part of it."
It started as a lopsided dirge, but the musicality of the match intensified once Nadal found his footing, and as the evening progressed the two rivals became locked in a back-and-forth struggle for power that featured rhythmic intervals of jaw-dropping power peppered with net forays, smashes and subtle tactical shifts.
After dropping the first set without winning a game at a major for the fourth time in his career and the first time since 2015, Nadal quickly upped his intensity and started trading blows with Thiem.
“I started of course really fast,” Thiem told reporters after the match. “That's what I was hoping to do, as well. That's what I was preparing for.”
Nadal, desperate to avoid falling in a two-set hole, rode a wild wave to take the second set, breaking Thiem twice consecutively to capture the set even as he failed to serve it out himself on his only try.
The third set was tight as well, and it wasn’t until Thiem overcooked a crosscourt volley at 6-5 deuce that Nadal saw his chance to take the set—and he did, with a forehand winner on the next point.
It wouldn’t have been surprising if Thiem’s level dipped from there. In many ways the Austrian was a surprise quarterfinalist in New York, despite being seeded ninth. He had faltered this summer, and entered the U.S. Open on a three-match winning streak with only one of those matches having been played on a hardcourt.
Not an ideal way to prep for the U.S. Open, but for some reason it hasn’t mattered for Thiem. He reached his first quarterfinal in New York by routinely taking out last year’s finalist Kevin Anderson, and he entered his first ever meeting with Nadal on a hardcourt with supreme confidence and clarity.
That clarity slipped at times during the match—Thiem can be so aggressive that he does so to his own detriment—but the Austrian found his best tennis again in the fourth set and it was Nadal who got sloppy and fell behind rapidly in the tiebreaker, handing Thiem three set points when his short backhand allowed Thiem to step in and guide a backhand winner down the line.
The Austrian converted his second set point then saved two break points early in the decider before falling behind 5-5, 0-40, before miraculously digging out of the hole again.
A tense fifth-set tiebreaker soon followed, and turned in Nadal’s favor when he worked over Thiem with aggressive smashes and cleaned up at the net with a forehand into the open court for 6-5—the only match point he would need.
Thiem played the tactics he wanted on the match point but a high and deep lob from the Spaniard proved to be too much too handle for Thiem. He missed the overhead well long and stood in disbelief as the crowd screamed accordingly, letting out nearly five hours of frustration, anxiety and pent-up emotion as the players met for an embrace on Thiem’s side of the net.
If it was supreme joy for Nadal, who has now been battle-tested in each of his last three matches and come through like the true warrior we know him to be, it was devastating heartbreak for Thiem, who played so valiantly and viscerally, only to fall short a sliver from the finish line.
“I would say the first really epic match I played. I played some good ones before, but not that long, not that long against the great guys on the Grand Slam stage,” Thiem said. “I'm happy that I did this for the first time, even if it went the wrong way. Of course, now I'm devastated a little bit. But in few days I will look back and will remember how great it was to play in front of a packed Arthur Ashe this great match.”
Thiem was so convincing with his brash, bold strikes in this match that the pro-Nadal crowd didn’t seem so pro-Nadal by the conclusion. The fans that stayed—and there were many—until the end of the seven-hour night session that began with Serena Williams’ victory over Karolina Pliskova were pro-tennis by the end of this fierce battle.
It’s cliché, but true: It’s a shame that someone had to lose.
Nadal moves on to face Juan Martin del Potro in the semifinals. The Argentine stands to benefit from the taxing tone set by Nadal’s physical encounters in New York. Hours before the Spaniard took the court Del Potro had already dusted off American John Isner, and he has lost just one set all tournament.
“It could be another big battle as the Wimbledon match was,” Del Potro said. “Of course, I like to play always with the No. 1 of the world, doesn't matter the tournament or the conditions or the weather. I just have the chance to play the greatest on this sport, and it's amazing for me.”
If the disparity between Nadal and Del Potro’s workloads give the Argentine an advantage, it’s one he’ll need. Nadal owns an 11-5 lifetime edge over the 2009 U.S. Open champion and he has knocked Del Potro out of three of the last four majors.
Their last encounter, a five-set thriller in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, was brilliantly played. With Del Potro on his favorite surface and at a venue where his most magical moment occurred, we should expect the same come Friday.