Rafael Nadal sighs with relief. And with good reason. He has just endured four hours of struggle and chaos, in a duel as oscillating and unpredictable as it was lackluster, without a pattern, peppered with errors – 42 on his part and 37 on that of his opponent, almost 80 in total – and resolved after a long back-and-forth that resulted in 18 breaks and curves of all kinds. Mariano Navone finally bowed on the sand of Bastad, Sweden: 6-7 (2), 7-5 and 7-5. The Mallorcan is happy because, after all, his eroded physique has withstood the demands of the Argentine – 15 years younger and 36th in the world – and his powerful mind has ended up prevailing among the emotional swings of an exhausting and extremely twisted afternoon. Let there be no shortage of epic, not even in summer. It had been a long time, two years to be exact, since he had reached the penultimate round of a tournament – the much bigger one at that time, Wimbledon – so he celebrates. Of course, with an asterisk. Severe punishment for the body.
“It was very tight, no doubt. There were many changes in the dynamics of each set, moments when he dominated and others when I did, but, in the end, nobody had control, that’s the truth,” the Spaniard sums up on the court, while still taking a breath and thinking that this Saturday, well, he has a double dose of action: the individual battle (13.00, Movistar+) against the unknown Dejan Ajdukovic —Croatian, 23 years old, 130th in the world and superior, against all odds, to Thiago Monteiro— and the one that he should theoretically play in the afternoon with the Norwegian Casper Ruud, in the doubles. The latter, in the air. Nadal continues to fine-tune himself and gain experience in a fluctuating process that requires time; however, he does not have much margin for approaching the Paris Games, where the level will force him to accelerate because the obstacles will be of another dimension.
The debut on Tuesday against the tender Leo Borg was very easy and he knew how to finish on Thursday against Cameron Norrie, the Briton not having much punch in recent times. But against Navone, a specialist who had already left a couple of interesting pills this season, the story is very different. A remarkable rise in the bar. Anxiety from start to finish, turns and more turns that lead to the second longest match he has played to date in three sets, surpassed only by the one he played against Novak Djokovic in the Caja Mágica in Madrid in 2009 (4h 03m). Sweat, acceptance and patience, because what his head dictates does not end up responding with precision to the technical execution. In search of rhythm, he is often late, the support is not the best and as the pulse stretches, the forces logically fail.
Without much time to catch his breath, Nadal finds himself facing Navone from one day to the next, who had already offered interesting strokes on clay – finals in Rio and Bucharest, although a short course in Roland Garros, second round – and confirms this with the good disposition of this Friday. The Argentine is an intelligent tennis player, with an edge on the backhand and a heavy shot from both sides; he interprets well, hits deep and returns from very far back, a very good concept. Nadalian. However, from the start the game was dominated by lack of control – three breaks in the first three games – until he finally decided to take the shuttlecock and take the initiative, given that the Spaniard was not in top form, making mistakes and being excessively conservative in his rallies. In any case, Nadal did not forget his old tools – balls and more lobbed balls, brazenly looking for the high backhand – and finally he fought the first set.
From 4-1 against to 5-5 all-tied, passing through the double reply: he first saves two set points and then it is the Argentine who escapes two more; almost an hour and a half (1h 24m) until Navone validates the juicy advantage acquired in the tie-break. The Spaniard seems to react in the continuation, but the pattern is repeated, this time in reverse: from pull to pull, from 3-0 in his favour to 3-4 against, until he confirms a definitive start. And the dynamic does not change in the resolution, with the rival not far from opening up a gap – four options to convert the 3-0 – and subsequently overwhelmed. Not without entanglement, of course. 5-2 ahead, Nadal feels cold sweats until the final stretch (5-5), but the Argentine ends up feeling too much of the mystique. Consequently, victory. The endless work. It has been 50 days without competing and it is about clearing up questions.
And he admits after having given up his serve up to eight times, after all the mess: “I wasn’t focused, you see; with 3-0 or 5-2, I lost concentration at times. But I was able to hold on physically until the end, and that is very important for me, although we will see how I am tomorrow… But today I am alive and I am in the semi-finals, that is important. We will see how I get up…” Along the way, Roberto Carballés falls (6-3, 2-6 and 7-5 with Thiago Agustín Tirante) and in Hamburg, Pedro Martínez extends his meritorious run (1-6, 6-1 and 6-4 against Francisco Cerúndolo) and meets the German Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals.
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