Injury too much for Rafa; out of Indian Wells

Rafael Nadal could beat them all, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, could beat practically every opponent he faced. Except one. His own body.   

The problem for Rafa the last year isn’t another guy on the court, it is himself getting on the court.

He was going to return to competition this week at the BNP Paribas Open, which started Wednesday at Indian Wells, supposedly having recovered at last from the hip injury suffered at the 2023 Australian Open. Yes, 2023, 13 months ago.

Everything was lined up. He would start against one-time Wimbledon finalist, Milos Ronicl, the Canadian, who also had hip trouble, if not as severe as Rafa.

Then Wednesday night, the BNP and Nadal announced he had withdrawn.

There were the usual condolences. “It is with great sadness that I have to withdraw from this amazing tournament,” was Nadal's statement.

There also were the usual questions.

Is this, as people suggested during the long absence, the end of Nadal’s brilliant career?

Even before the fateful Australian Open Nadal had a series of injuries, disappointing but not surprising for someone who this May will be 38 and plays tennis as aggressively as an NFL linebacker plays defense.`

Then came the big one, the hip.

Rafa was special, along with Federer and Djokovic, one of the Big Three in the men’s game, so important in a sport where there are no home teams but there are home fans, whose appreciation soars on the skills and personalities of athletes from around the globe. It didn’t matter to the public that Nadal was from Spain — in fact it was a part of his appeal— only that he could chase a backhand down the line and return it with a flourish and hit a thundering forehand for a winner.

There are no home games in the individual sports of tennis, golf, and boxing. There are, however, home fans. They find their guy, or lady, and stay loyal until the end.

Which this could be for Nadal, who has won 22 Grand Slam tournaments, two fewer than Djokovic, who after all his nonsense about his refusal to be vaccinated, returns to Indian Wells.

You dare not predict the future, especially in sports, but one suspects we may never see the return of Rafa Nadal at Indian Wells. Or any other tournament.

He spoke in his apology of sadness. That’s a word all too appropriate for all of tennis.

Indian Wells defending champ plays like one

INDIAN WELLS — The only trouble with being the defending champion is that everyone keeps reminding you that you’re the defending champion. As Taylor Fritz has learned at the BNP Paris Tennis Open where, yes, he is defending champion.

Fritz also is sort of a local, having lived, worked out and competed in this desert community. Which makes it well, worse hardly is the appropriate word when, in fact, you’re adding a footnote to success.

The defending champ — last reference — played like one Monday in the BNP Paribas Open, defeating Sebastian Baez of Argentina, 6-1, 6-2. Since the match was only 1 hour, 10 minutes, you might say, borrowing the cliché, that Fritz hardly raised a sweat. But on a day when the thermometer reached 82 degrees Fahrenheit all you needed to perspire was to blink your eyes.

Which is all Baez had time to do against Fritz, who at No. 5 is the highest American in the men’s rankings, damn impressive for an American who’s 25. Or any age.

Some would provide a disclaimer on the one-sided Fritz victory, pointing out Baez is a clay court specialist, and the courts at Indian Wells are very hard indeed.  No thanks.

Rafael Nadal felt most comfortable (and was most successful) on clay courts. But he also won on the grass at Wimbledon and the hard courts everywhere. 

If you can play, you can play whatever the surface or conditions.

Fritz, the son of two tennis parents (his mother Kathy May reached the quarters at the U.S. Open) can play. He and Francis Tiafoe — and now maybe newbie Ben Shelton — are supposed to be the future of U.S. men’s tennis, part of the so-called “Next Gen.”

Maybe, but Monday, Fritz was magnificent. Then again, Baez was bewildered.

Fritz’s problem would seem to be his own body. Two weeks ago after a match in the humidity of Acapulco, Mexico, Fritz had severe cramps. And throughout his career, he’s had numerous injuries.

“I have no idea why,” said Fritz when asked if he could explain the ailments. “I think I’ve been very lucky, but obviously I do recover from things very quickly. I think a lot of that has to do with my willpower, and like I hate to be out.  I hate to be injured.”

For the time, Fritz is healthy and thinking positively. He’s done his best to avoid the praise from the gang. He appears wise and experienced enough not to fall into the trap of arrogance.

 “Like every hour or so people keep telling me I’m defending here. But I am trying to take it how it is. You know we start over at zero.  I’m trying to have good results, trying to put myself in the best position to end the year at the highest spot.”

A win in a match that barely went two hours would seem Taylor Fritz is headed in the proper direction.

Fritz does what he never thought possible

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — This was early, about the time the uproar had been silenced into disbelief, their hero — good grief — having lost the opening four games when one of his super fans, the type who wave Spanish flags, shouted plaintively, “Let’s go Rafa.”

But on Sunday, Rafael Nadal wasn’t going anywhere. Except to his first loss in 21 matches this year, beaten 6-3, 7-6 (6) by Taylor Fritz, the guy who now may be going places.

Nobody goes undefeated (in the NFL, yes, the ‘72 Dolphins were the exception), particularly in a spurt where you’re traveling around the world and playing hurt, which Nadal was Sunday. So many types of courts. So many different opponents. So whlle Rafa, with his 21 Grand Slam championships, always is a story, Fritz in many ways is a bigger one.

Especially since he virtually grew up at Indian Wells, the desert resort owned by Larry Ellison (he was in the stands Sunday) a hundred miles or so from Fritz’s home in San Diego. Especially since Fritz, 24, is the first American to win the tournament since Andre Agassi some 20 years ago.

It’s a bit overboard to say this was a generational change for the sport in America, but the U.S. has been looking for some men who can perform like Jim Courier — who was there in the Tennis Channel booth at the BNP Paribas Open. Or Pete Sampras. Or Michael Chang. Or Andre Agassi. Or Andy Roddick (the last American to win a major, the 2003 U.S. Open).

Fritz wasn’t thinking so grandiosely. But this victory over the 35-year Nadal (whether or not Nadal had to call for the trainer after getting skunked in he first set) was transcendental in the hoping, the hype, and finally the win. Now, does Francis Tiafoe burst through the door?

Fritz, whose mother and father were tennis pros, said as a kid he thrilled to the cheers he heard for the great players and wanted to earn some on his own. Those came inside 23,000-seat Stadium One, where in an earlier match Iga Swiatek pounded wind-blown Maria Sakkari in the women’s final, 6-4, 6-1.

Fritz, who’s built like an outside linebacker, tweaked an ankle in his semifinal win on Saturday, but he wasn’t going to sit out a chance for glory. If Nadal could play with pain, a kid trying for a breakthrough was no less determined to be across the net.

“Yeah, I mean, I'm just so lucky I was able to go out there, play really well,” said Fritz, “and not be hindered at all by something that I thought.”

Fritz was asked if he could put into words his emotions, and he tried mightily.

”I mean, no. It's like after the match I kept saying, I'm going to cuss, but I said no effing way, no effing way, I can't believe it's real. I signed the camera, I just put question marks. Stunned. Couldn't even believe it. Seriously, this is like a childhood dream come true, like a wild dream you never expect to actually happen. It really hasn't even sunk in.”

It will, and he’ll become a target, the player everyone will want to beat, the way Fritz wanted to beat the big guns.

“I think to do it against Rafa in the end that's like the, I don't know, icing on the cake,” said Fritz. “It's just insane. Someone that I watched like dominate, win everything.

“I didn't watch a ton of tennis growing up, but it's tough to not know these guys, knowing they're literally winning everything, their Grand Slam finals, all their battles. It's insane to even be on the same court with these people, much less be able to beat one of them, to win such a big tournament. To do it here in Indian Wells, as well, the combination of all these crazy things that I never thought possible.”

But as we found out and Taylor Fritz showed, they are possible.

Fritz wins, and Rafa enters the picture

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Taylor Fritz was talking about what some would say was the biggest win of a growing career, and there over his shoulder in the interview room at Indian Wells was a television shot of, yes, Rafael Nadal.

That’s the way it is in tennis, a sport where you virtually aren’t allowed to get your moments without somebody else intruding, if unintentionally.

There’s always another game, another match, especially at the BNP Paribas Open, where the action is compressed to a point you wonder not so much who’s on the court but who isn’t.

On Saturday, in the usual 80-degree-plus temperature of the California desert in March, Fritz, the underdog if only barely, knocked off Andrey Rublev, 7-5, 6-4.

Then in the other half of a doubleheader that filled the 23,000-seat Stadium One, Rafa (phew) made it by fellow Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.

That puts Fritz and Nadal into the Sunday final of an event that’s a notch or two down from the Grand Slams. They’ll play following the women’s final between Iga Swiatek and Maria Sakkari.

The action really is compressed, and yes, the ladies deserve a separate day for their own final. But unless the Gregorian calendar can be revised, things aren’t going to change.

What’s changed for Fritz, the native southern Californian (lower case, he didn’t attend any university, much less USC), is that he’s become as effective with the forehand as the backhand.

That’s according to Andrey Rublev, whom Fritz defeated.

Rublev, higher ranked (eighth) than Fritz (16th), is the Russian who with a felt-tip pen a few weeks ago scribbled an anti-war message on a television camera lens.

Fritz, 24 (born Oct. 28, 1997), is exactly a week younger than Rublev, one of those bits of trivia that contribute to sporting interest.

His mother, Kathy May, was a tennis champion; His father, Guy, played professionally and coached. Taylor’s destiny was decided early. His success came later as a pro, Fritz battling all those eastern Europeans.

He played Nadal a couple of years back, but Rafa was more experienced, polished, and effective, toying with Fritz.

“I remember I felt like he kind of just played high spinny balls to me,” said Fritz about that match. “He like actually just gave me a lot of forehands in my favorite spot, like the shoulder-high one to like kind of slap flat, and I think he literally just kept doing it until like I missed eventually. I felt like almost baiting me to go for it.

“But yeah, I mean, I kind of beat myself trying to fire off winners against him. So I think my level's so much higher than then, so I won't, maybe won't be feeling like I need to pull the trigger so much, need to do so much. Like, I can kind of just play more within myself.”

Fritz is the first American male player to reach the Indian Wells finals since John Isner in 2012. The fact that it will be against Nadal, who is unbeaten in 20 matches this season (including that record-setting 21st major at the Australian Open), is another issue.

Still, he has taken a step beyond, and he’s satisfied as well he should be.

“When I hit (the final shot),” he said, “as soon as I hit the ball I was like, I think that's going to be good enough to win the point, and then, yeah, as soon as I saw that he hit it and it wasn't going to go on the court, I was just like, you know, so much relief and like, I mean, I just couldn't, you know, couldn't believe it.

“Those moments are like the reason why I wanted to be an athlete, wanted to play professional tennis. It's the best part of it all.”

Even when Rafa Nadal enters the picture.

This is what makes Rafa great, says Kyrgios

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Nick Kyrgios threw his racquet at the court, a symbolic gesture of frustration. Why not? In his mind, he already had thrown away his biggest match of the season.

Sport is awash in possibilities — the what-ifs, could-haves and should-haves. We learned that long ago, so it does no good to think Kyrgios looked very much as if he would defeat Rafael Nadal.

Because he didn’t.

Just the way over two months no one has defeated Nadal, from the Australian Open to Thursday’s quarterfinal in the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.

Rafa’s 7-6 (0), 5-7, 6-4 triumph in the sweltering 85-degree weather of the Coachella Valley — yes, it’s dry heat, but in a three-hour match, who cares? — gave him a mark of 19-0 for 2022.

And it gave Kyrgios, the 25-year-old Aussie with such athletic ability, and we’re told such potential, the agonizing second thoughts that inhabit the disappointed.

“That one hit pretty hard,” conceded Kyrgios, who got into the tournament as a wild card.

“I felt like, honestly, I was the one to end the streak. I felt like I was playing well. I felt like I did everything right in the first set that I planned to do. I sat down with my coach, myself, and I had a game plan, and everything was working. Two points away from the first set, I don't know how he got out of that game. 5-4, 30-15, just kept replaying that point over and over and … over again.”

Rafa got out of it because, at 35, he has the experience and most significantly the wherewithal. In short, been there, done that.

Nadal has won more than 400 matches, on clay — all those French Opens — on grass and as the surface is at Indian Wells, hard court.

“And competing, competing,” reminded Kyrgios about Nadal’s persistence.

“Somehow snagged the second and a couple points in the third that just, a couple break points. One of them I couldn't do anything on and two, I just missed a backhand by who knows, three inches. That's all it is against Rafa all the time.”

You don’t give Nadal an opportunity. The way you don’t give Tom Brady or didn’t give a younger LeBron James an opportunity. They’ll find a way to beat you, or to let you beat yourself.

“I did it emotionally and mentally,” explained Nadal about winning when others might not have won. “I was ready to keep fighting. So happy with the victory and of course happy with the level of the set.”

Analysts sought reasons, breaking down the little things, the response to some of Kyrgios’ errors, forced or unforced, or to Rafa’s own errors. No one, however, took issue with Kyrgios getting blanked, shut out in the first-set tiebreak. When’s the last time anybody, much less a quality player like Kyrgios, failed to score a tiebreak point?

Nadal, as is his right, wanted to reflect on the result, the victory. The rest is trivia, except for the guys and girls in the press box.

“For me, it was one more match,” said Nadal .“Honestly, no, it's another match of quarterfinals of a Masters 1000 in a big stadium, one of the best stadiums in the world, in front of a great crowd, great opponent in front.

“So for me it was like this, another (hard-fought) match that I needed to play, to play well to go through. I enjoy these kinds of matches. I enjoy the challenges. And today, I was able to keep going, and that makes me happy and makes me proud.”

Rafa said he wasn’t aware Kyrgios hurled his racquet after the final point. What Kyrgios was aware of was his opponent.

“He's too good, I guess.,” Kyrgios said. “He played a few points well and he got out of it and that's what he does. That's what makes him great.”

Exactly.

Just win, baby — and Nadal, Fritz do just that

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Rafael Nadal keeps beating everyone he plays, and as sporting philosophers from Al Davis (“Just win, baby”) to Herman Edwards (“You play to win the game”) have told us, not much else matters. 

Sure, his victory over the 6-foot-11 Reilly Opelka in the BNP Paribas Open tournament was narrow. But it was a victory, the only sort of result Rafa has provided this year.

He won 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5) on (what else?) an 80-degree-plus Wednesday afternoon in the desert, extending his streak since the start of year (and including the Australian Open) to 18-0.

Not only does that represent perfection, it sets up a Thursday match against the guy who is part athlete (a very large part) and part entertainer, the Australian Nick Kyrgios, who says he’d rather be in the NBA on a basketball court than in an open on a tennis court.

The way basketball people used to get excited about a matchup between LeBron James and Steph Curry in the golden days of the Lakers way back in 2019, tennis folk are anticipating Rafa vs. Nick.

And not because it’s the only thing they have. The almost local kid, Taylor Fritz of San Diego, was a winner, defeating Alex de Minauer 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

So, no Roger (sob) or Novak (No-vax) but some intriguing competitors. At least to some mavens. The writer in the Desert Sun even called Nadal-Kyrgios “must see” tennis.” Wow.

Records in tennis may not be as accurate as those in, say, baseball, but apparently Guillermo Vilas of Argentina won 34 straight matches in the 1970s and Djokovic 53 straight in 2010-11.

Rafa, then, has a long way to go, and even though he’s a mere 35, it’s doubtful he’ll get to the big numbers. Still, 17 without a blemish is not unimpressive.

Similar to any top-line athlete, he says he’s unconcerned with all the numbers except the ones on his scorecard at the conclusion of a match. Is that the Spanish version of “just win, baby”?

Asked if he was happy that he won in straight sets, Nadal had a response often repeated in a career that has produced 401 victories (a record 21 in Grand Slams): “Happy to win. Doesn’t matter how many sets.“

Unless maybe it’s the fifth set of a four-hour Wimbledon semifinal, and recovery tie for the final would be limited. Not that things like that ever affected Rafa.

“But I am happy of course to be in the quarterfinals of this great tournament, playing better without a doubt,” he added. “That's my best match of the tournament. Happy the way that I was able to play during the whole match. I only played one bad game with myself. For the rest, I think I played solid. I did what I had to do against a very difficult player to play, like Reilly.”

Nadal, a four-time winner at Indian Wells, has a winning record against Kyrgios as he has against virtually everyone else.

“(Thursday) is going to be a tough match, but we are in quarterfinals of Indian Wells,” he said. “I have to expect a very tough opponent.”

It’s difficult to say what Fritz expected against de Minauer, but he was behind quickly. Strange thoughts then creep through one’s mind.

”We were talking about this after the match,” said Fritz, who then used a term that makes some athletes cringe. “I'll choke some matches here and there, for sure. A lot of people do. But then I'll also clutch out a lot of matches like I have the last two days, and this one felt really — honestly, the last two third-set breakers I played have been really solid for me, not a lot I did wrong either one.”

Not when you’re the winner.

Nadal: ‘One of the most emotional nights of my career’

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

NEW YORK — The match that seemed destined to last forever showed what we already knew, that Rafael Nadal is one of the all-time tennis greats and what we now know, that Daniil Medvedev has the skills and resilience to be the same.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Another Federer masterpiece at the theater of Wimbledon

By Art Spander

WIMBLEDON, England — This is his stage, if not quite his masterpiece theater then his theater of masterpieces, Wimbledon, Centre Court.

Others have made appearances, but somehow as Friday, invariably the place is Roger Federer’s.

Rafael Nadal, a bit younger, seemingly a bit stronger, was supposed to win that semifinal, wasn’t he? But when the guy on the other side of the net is Roger Federer, and the match is at Wimbledon, as we learned again, predictions go wrong.

Federer took Nadal out of his game and with a 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory took himself into a Wimbledon final for a 12^th time. He’s won eight of those finals and Sunday has the opportunity make it nine.

His opponent will be Novak Djokovic, the defending champion, the top player in the ATP rankings and a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 winner over Roberto Bautista Agut in the other semi.

“It will be difficult,” said Federer. “He’s not No. 1 by chance. But I’m very excited.”

As were the screaming fans at Wimbledon, whether in the high-priced seats where, like Lakers and Warriors games back in the states, royalty gathers — there figurative, here genuine — and up on “Henman Hill,” where the masses watch on giant screen TV, the action happening a few yards away.

Federer may be Swiss, but the Brits have come to embrace him because of the classy, graceful way he’s performed at the their tournament, the world’s oldest, the All-England Lawn Tennis championships.

He is 37, almost 38, but the elegantly way he plays, those one-handed backhands, those huge serves — he opened with an ace — is ageless. “I’m exhausted,” he told the BBC, moments after leaving the court.

Just four sets and just 3 hours and 2 minutes, compared to that five-set, 4 hour and 48 minute epic final between Roger and Rafa in 2008, but he was 11 years younger.

And of course, he had 11 fewer years experience.

“It was tough at the end,” said Federer of Nadal almost forcing a fifth set. “He played some unbelievable shots in the match. I think the match was played at a very high level.”

Which one would suppose when the two of the three players acknowledged to be the best of their era go at it, Federer with his 20 Grand Slam victories, the 33-year-old Nadal with his 18.

“The first set was huge,” said Federer. Indeed, Federer had won only two of the previous 18 matches when Nadal took the first set. Now, overall, against each other, Nadal has 25 wins, Federer 16.

To Nadal, the outcome could be explained easily. “I think his return (game) was better than my one,” he said.

As you know, Rafa, a Spaniard who came to English after he came to the tennis tour, sometimes has problems with the language. That bothers him less than the problems he had with Federer. And with his own game. “I didn’t receive well,” said Nadal, meaning returning serve, not going out for a sideline pass.

“When that happens,” Nadal said, “(Federer’s) at an advantage. He’s in control of the match because you feel a little bit more under pressure than him.”

Rafa had problems with his own backhand. Those could be overcome against most players, but not against the other members of the Big Three, Federer or Djokovic.

“I was a little bit too worried about the backhand,” said Nadal, sounding very much like a weekend muni court player, “so I was not able to move with the freedom in the forehand. When that happens against a player like him, is so difficult.”

As the years pass, to Federer and to the public, each victory in a Grand Slam becomes bigger and bigger. When he didn’t even make the semis in 2018, the talk was he was in full decline. So much for talk.

"Yeah, I mean, obviously extremely high,” Federer said when asked where the win ranks among the dozens he’s earned. “It's always very, very cool to play against Rafa here, especially when I haven't played in so long. It lived up to the hype, especially from coming out of the gates; we were both playing very well. Then the climax at the end with the crazy last game, some tough rallies there.

“But it's definitely, definitely going to go down as one of my favorite matches to look back at, again, because it's Rafa, it's at Wimbledon, the crowds were into it, great weather.”

What else need be said?

Wimbledon: Heat, Rafa and a Yankees sideshow

By Art Spander

WIMBLEDON, England — So it was 91 degrees Saturday. Rafa Nadal was grousing about the Wimbledon seeding, which is not unusual, and 12 miles away the Yankees were playing the Red Sox, which is not only unusual but unprecedented.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven

More like Indian Wells: Good weather, Roger and Rafa

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — That was more like it. Indian Wells, the elite suburb of Palm Springs — which is pretty elite its ownself — was what we expect this time of year, beautiful weather. And Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal also were what we expect this time of year, playing beautiful tennis.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Indian Wells: No. 2 (Rafa) rolls; No. 1 (Djokovic) does not

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Rafael Nadal was sitting there after a win trying to explain a defeat. That’s the way it is in tennis. Maybe in all sports.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Rafa and Thiem: 4 hours and 49 minutes in the Twilight Zone

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The Yankees game against the A’s had ended about 45 minutes earlier. And that was in Oakland.

In New York, three time zones — and one twilight zone — to the east, they were still playing tennis.

Well, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem were still playing tennis. You’ve heard of breakfast at Wimbledon. This was insomnia at Flushing Meadows.

Nadal, 32, the world's No. 1, would win, defeating Thiem, who is a solid No. 9, in a bizarre five-set quarterfinal, 0-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-7, 7-6 (5), on Tuesday evening. Actually, on Wednesday morning, since the final point was at 2:03 a.m.

Nadal was resilient. So, too, were the fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium who stayed until the end.

You know the line from that Kander and Ebb song, popularized by the great Frank Sinatra, about waking up in the city that never sleeps. How about holding America’s tennis championship, the U.S. Open, in the wee small hours — to quote another song by Sinatra?

Officials and ESPN, which to its credit stayed with the match the full 4 hours and 49 minutes, love these late matches, as much for the attention as anything. Let’s see what’s on the tube. Oh, yeah, another John Wayne rerun. And, what’s this, a Rafael Nadal forehand?

Weary and sweaty — it was in the high 70s when the match started and headed back to the 90s Wednesday afternoon — Nadal, in a sleeveless shirt, stretched his arms at 90-degree angles in triumph. If some saw a religious connotation, that’s their choice.

Nadal’s choice is to play quicker. Then again, he was the one who staggered through the first set, which he “bageled,” to use the pros' term, a big zero, 6-0 for Thiem.

“After the first set,” Nadal said, “the match became normal.”

Not that there’s anything in sports happening after midnight to which the word “normal” can be applied.

When Nadal was told that besides his 17 Grand Slams, second to the 20 of Roger Federer — who didn’t win his late-night match Monday — the after-dark match would be another sort of record. His response was what one might expect at that hour, a smile.

“What is important about this match is the level of tennis,” he said, “the drama. When the things happen like this, the atmosphere and the crowd become more special. People get involved.

“Yeah, it has been great match, great atmosphere. Happy to be part of it. Not because it’s 3 in the morning (when he did his interview), I am happy about the ending.”

Thiem, a 25-year-old Austrian (yes, as in The Sound of Music and skiing), was not that unhappy. He went against one of the best and only lost in a fifth-set tiebreak.

“My earliest memory of Rafa,” said Thiem, “was when he beat Roger (Federer) in the French semis in 2005, I was 11 back then. Didn’t really think that I would also play him one day, but it’s very nice.”

Nadal’s win was not unappreciated by the tennis people. The Open is a one-of-a-kind event, with the late matches, the party atmosphere, the huge crowds that some days surpass 70,000.

The Open is New York in the extreme. Still, the top names — Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Federer and Nadal — are necessary for TV ratings and headlines.

The Yankees, the most important team in this town, are trying to get to the postseason. The New York football Giants and the rest of the NFL teams are about to start the season. There’s only so much space in the papers — the Post had a full story on Nadal-Thiem Wednesday morning — so second-raters get squeezed out.

Nadal, on the A-list, fortunately, squeezed in.

“I played a lot of long and tough matches in my career,” said Nadal. “This is one more. I like this feeling, but at the same time you feel tired. I lost at Wimbledon in a match like this. Today was for me.

“It’s just that someone has to lose. That’s part of the game. But personal satisfaction, when you give everything and you play with the right attitude, is the same ... Tennis is not forever, but you know the chances to play these kind of matches every time are less and less.”

He had the chance and did something with it.

Tennis Open is anything but a nightmare

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Headline on the New York Post web site: “US Open’s week 1 has been a nightmare.” That’s the trouble with those tabloids, always understating the situation.

Nightmares are for Elm Street, not tennis tournaments. Nobody’s awakened screaming here. Just confused. Or angry. Or sweating. Or bewildered.

In other words, it’s a normal Open. The weather is oppressive, the players obsessive and the fans impressive. Hey, it was after 1 a.m. on Thursday, a qualifier, Karolina Muchova was beating Garbine Muguruza and there were people in the stands.

But this is the city that never sleeps, the place, we’re told, that if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. Whether that includes beleaguered tennis umpire Mohamed Lahyani is problematical, although he was back in the chair Friday on Court 13 to officiate a men’s doubles match.

The problem was that Lahyani got out of his chair Thursday and gave what appeared to be a pep talk to the slightly imbalanced Nick Kyrgios because Kyrgios seemingly was not trying in his match against Pierre-Hugues Herbert. The USTA announced on Friday that the well-respected Lahyani wouldn’t be suspended.

Think of an NFL referee giving advice to Tom Brady in the second quarter of the Super Bowl. But this is tennis, where women change shirts on court and players are allowed “bathroom breaks.”

For a while Friday, it appeared Rafael Nadal, the defending men’s champion, needed a break of a different sort. He lost the first set and was two games down in the second to Karen Khachanov of Russia. But there was no nightmare for Nadal, or for tournament sponsors who wouldn’t want to lose a top name in the first week.

This Open began with temperatures in the mid-90s, which brought grumbling — as we’ve heard forever, everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it — and then evolved into a question of the competency of an official.

Among all this, Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic kept winning, Muguruza and Caroline Wozniacki lost and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, were destined to play Friday night in a third-round match they didn’t want but the public certainly did. The American men, other than John Isner, couldn’t make it out of the first week, Sam Querrey inexplicably losing in the first round, Tennys Sandgren, Francis Tiafoe and Steve Johnson losing on Thursday, and Taylor Fritz losing on Friday in the third.

Fritz is known as the e-sports champion of the locker room, which is not exactly the champion of the court, but you can’t have everything,

What the U.S. Open, the final Grand Slam event of every year, has is its own personality. Some players dislike the atmosphere. Others say they enjoy the carnival approach, the distractions and no less the attention gained in competing where every day and night there are more than 50,000 spectators.

Federer, winner of 20 Slams including five Opens, says he embraces the Open, where the fans embrace him. He likes playing at night in 23,000-seat Ashe Stadium when the temperature drops and a tennis tournament becomes another off-Broadway hit in New York.

Nightrmare? For Roger, the Open is dream.

Nadal takes the time, and plan, best for him

By Art Spander

WIMBLEDON, England — So you say, let’s go straight to the men’s final, Roger vs. Rafa, and do away with the prelims and more importantly the questions?

What, and miss out on all those great forehands and pointed comments?

Roger Federer, of course, breezed through his first-round Wimbledon match Monday, then Rafael Nadal did the same on Tuesday, defeating Dudi Sela of Israel, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.

“I did a lot of games good with my serve,” said Nadal, who as a Spaniard can be excused for an occasional double fault with the King’s English. As, presumably, he will excuse the journalists for asking him everything from the irrelevant to the irreverent.

The scribes didn’t necessarily do a lot of bad things, more a few stupid things, or unneeded things, tossing at him questions that would have sent a diplomatic guy like Bill Belichick away in anger but simply left the 32-year-old Nadal bewildered.

Three weeks ago, Nadal won the French Open, Roland Garros, for an 11th time. But that’s played on clay, and Wimbledon is on grass. There are several run-up events on grass, in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. Nadal didn’t enter one.

And why not, he was asked.

“Because if I play too much,” said the perceptive Nadal, “then I come here, all the questions are: Why you not play less? Now I play less and the question is: Why you are not playing?’“

It turned out he was playing with us.

“I am just joking,” he added.

As earlier in this first week of the Championships did a former three-time champ from the mid-1980s, Boris Becker. Now 50, Becker returns to Wimbledon each summer to work as a color commentator for the BBC.

According to The Guardian, Becker both swore at the BBC’s Sue Barker and stole a joke from nine-time champion Martina Navratilova, who also gets behind the microphones at Grand Slam events.

Becker, who is German, has declared bankruptcy and also been involved in a dispute with the Central African Republic over the validity of a diplomatic passport the country gave him. “He just wanted diplomatic immunity,” said Navratilova, “so he wouldn’t have to wait at customs.”

We’ll have to wait for that possible match between Nadal, the No. 2 seed, and Federer, the defending champ and No. 1 seed.

Tennis, as baseball used to be, is a sport without a clock — and in truth, baseball still can go for hours, depending on the action or lack of it. Now Wimbledon may rule that a player must not take longer than 25 seconds to serve after the previous point.

“Personally,” said Nadal, “I don’t feel that’s going to bother me in terms of the sport. It you want to see a quick game without thinking, well done. If you want to keep playing in a sport you need to think, you need to play with more tactics, you want to have long and good rallies. Then you are going the wrong way.

“But seems like sometimes is only about the business. So I cannot support this, because I don’t feel the matches that stay for the history of our sport went that quick. All the matches that have been important in the history of our sport have been four hours, five hours.”

One of those was 10 years ago, 2008, when Nadal, in a 4-hour, 48-minute match that was decided 9-7 in the fifth set, outlasted Federer in what was the longest — and arguably, the greatest — Wimbledon final in history.

Think anyone that day was saying tennis needs a clock? It they wanted anything, it was a rematch. It isn’t speed that matters, it’s quality.

“To play these matches, you need time between points,” said Nadal, “because you cannot play points in a row with long rallies, with emotional points, having only 25 seconds between points.”

Great sport, whether it lasts minutes or hours, is timeless.

Rafa flexing his muscles

By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The bicep is the clue, the left one, so much bigger than the right, stretching the sleeve of Rafael Nadal’s post-match T-shirt. Tennis players, like blacksmiths, pound with one arm, hour after hour, day after day, season after season.

The serve, the forehand, all done with Nadal’s left. The two-handed backhand doesn’t make much difference. There’s an imbalance between the two arms, as there is for anyone who’s spent a lifetime in the sport.

Nadal is 30 now, old — veteran of more than 1,000 pro matches over 14 years, and winner of 14 Grand Slams — and yet in today’s world of improved diet and exercise techniques, he is young.

Roger Federer, beating Nadal in the final, won the Australian Open a month and a half ago at 35. And Nadal, apparently free of one injury after another, said, “I am playing at a very high level.” That includes his 6-3, 6-2, win Sunday in the BNP Paribas Open over an Argentinean named Guido Pella.

The great ones just keep playing: Nadal, Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray — yes, great, even though Murray, the No. 1 seed, No. 1 in the world rankings, was upset Saturday night by Vasek Pospisil. 

Playing against the other stars. Playing against themselves.

Tennis is their life, as well as their job. Tennis is what they do, what Rafa Nadal does, until someday he won’t be able to do it any longer.

They are competitors. They are globetrotters. Starting in December, Nadal has been in Dubai, Australia, Mexico and now the California desert. It beats being trapped in an office cubicle, especially when you’re able to beat most of your opponents.

Is it unusual that in tennis, as in golf, fans cheer for the favorite, not the underdog? They want Federer to win, Nadal to win. When that happens the paying customers are satisfied they got what they expected, what they wanted. “Hey, saw Djokovic break serve.”

Hard to know what the players want other than good facilities (the Tennis Garden at Indian Wells is one of the finest), good health and an effective game. They are nomads, facing the same people across the net or in the media rooms, trying to get a little more topspin, trying to do a little less explaining. Not that they don’t understand what comes with the territory.

Most of the better players, no matter if they’re from Switzerland, Serbia or Shanghai, speak English impressively. Nadal, however, used translators for his first several years. He has picked up the language, although with a strong accent, and sometimes his thoughts as well as his words are confusing to the listener.

To his credit, what Nadal, along with others of his skill level, has learned is he must deal with all sorts of questions from the press, some professional, some personal, some stupid.

On Sunday, after Nadal said he thought he played a solid match against the 166^th-ranked Pella — “For a few moments I played well; for a few moments I played less well” — he was asked where the sport would be in the future. Would the men all be 6-foot-5? Would there be limits on racquets?

Nadal doesn’t want a serve and volley game, but one in which shots go back and forth, long rallies. “People can think it’s because it helps me, but I am talking about the sport overall, no? ... I think good points, if we want to maintain a good show for the people.”

With his frantic movements and his wicked forehands, Nadal presents an exceptional show. He’s a scrambler, a battler, not as graceful as Federer but arguably more exciting to watch.

“In Melbourne,” he said, meaning the Australian Open, “I played some great matches. In Acapulco (where he lost in the final to Sam Querrey) I played well. In Brisbane (before the Australian) I played well. In Abu Dhabi (Dubai, the end of December) I played great.

“Four events I played at a very high level. Very happy the way I started the season. Now there is another opportunity.”

An opportunity to continue flexing his muscles.

The new kid hits Broadway and beats Nadal

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — It was classic Broadway, if a few miles east at Flushing Meadows. The new kid shows up and, right there before our eyes, shows up the older guy, the champion. You can hear the words from the decades: “We’re going to make you a star.”

Except they don’t have to, because Lucas Pouille is now a star. He went from virtual anonymity to instant fame in the time of a single tennis match Sunday afternoon and evening, if a lengthy, dramatic match, stunning the great Rafael Nadal, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6) in the U.S. Open.

Yes, a tiebreak in a fifth set that by itself lasted one hour and 10 minutes. Yes, a tiebreak in which Nadal, trailing 6-3 to draw even in a competition few in the bellowing, howling crowd in 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium thought Nadal ever would lose.

Yes, a tiebreak when Nadal had a wide-open forehand at 6-6 in that tiebreak — and hit it into the net.

“It was a very tense moment,” said Pouille (pronounced Puh-yeeh, or thereabouts). He is a 22-year-old Frenchman from the suburbs of Dunkirque on the English Channel, a relative unknown facing one the game’s finest, the 30-year-old Nadal who has won 14 Slams, with at least one victory in each of the four.

“After this,” said Pouille of the Nadal miss, “I was very comfortable. I wanted to take my chances.”

After this, meaning the fourth-round triumph, Pouille becomes one of three Frenchmen in the quarter-finals, one of whom, Gael Monfils, is his next opponent.

Nadal, a lefty, had been bothered by a bad left wrist. He pulled out of the French Open, a tournament he has won nine times, in late May. Then he skipped Wimbledon. But in August, he teamed with fellow Spaniard Marc Lopez to win the doubles title at the Rio Olympics and in singles there reached the semifinals.

Here, in the Open, he hadn’t lost a set. And the only time they had met previously, Nadal defeated Pouille, 6-1, 6-2, in straight sets. “When I was younger,” said Pouille, “I used to watch all his matches at the Open, the one against (Novak) Djokovic. I knew I had to be aggressive.”

So he was, jumping off to that 6-1 win in the first set by moving to the corners. No one then suspected we were in for a match that would last over four hours and finish with Pouille, after a winning forehand, flopping on his back in glee and sticking out his tongue.

That was his method of celebrating, not of mocking anyone. The fans, who as always in tennis support the best-known, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, had shifted, not so much dropping Nadal as embracing Pouille.

What they were witnessing hour after hour was courageous, enthralling play, and they wanted to be part of it.

“The crowd,” said Pouille appreciably, “was just unbelievable. You just have to enjoy.”

There was no enjoyment for Nadal. He was the No. 4 seed, favored over No. 25 Pouille. At times Rafa produced some of the heroic, athletic shots we know and expect. But too often, there were mistakes.

“I think he played a good match,” said Nadal of Pouille. “He started so strong. I fight until the end with. There were things I could do better. Had the right attitude. I fighted right up to the last ball.

“But I need something else; I need something more that was not there today. I going to keep working to try to find. But, yes, was a very, very close match that anything could happen. Just congratulate the opponent that probably he played with better decision than me the last couple of points.”

These battles between a familiar and successful player and an outsider perhaps about to reach the next level inevitably leave us with mixed emotions, delighted that someone new takes the big step but also distressed at the failure of a player so long at the top. When Nadal walked out of the tunnel after the pre-match introduction, the approval was thunderous.

When he left the court, he smiled, if painfully, and waved.

“Was a big mistake,” he had said earlier about his forehand. “But you are six-all in the tiebreak. I played the right point. I put me in a position to have the winner, and I had the mistake. That's it.

“You cannot go crazy thinking about these kind of things, no? You have a mistake. The opponent played a good point in the match point, and that's it. The problem is arrive to six-all on the tiebreak of the fifth. I should be winning before.”

That is the lament of all losers, no matter how much they’ve won.

Palm Springs Life: What's in Brand? Plenty in Tennis

By Art Spander
Palm Springs Life

Hollywood figured it out almost as soon as there were movies: Fame sells.

You didn’t need actors who knew Shakespeare — not that it wasn’t acceptable — but actors and actresses who were known. The two worst words for box office weren’t “No talent,” but “Who’s he?” The same thing for golf and tennis.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2016 Desert Publications. All rights reserved.

Nadal and Federer, the Difference Between Night and Day

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The difference was that between night and day, between a man who mysteriously has lost his touch and one who somehow again has found his, between a player who should be better than he’s been of late and another who by all rights shouldn’t be as good as he is this late in a career.

The difference was that between Rafael Nadal, who in the wee small hours Saturday was beaten after winning the first two sets from Fabio Fognini, and Roger Federer, who in the bright glare of an early afternoon Saturday was victorious over Philipp Kohlschreiber.

It seems never to stop at the U.S. Open tennis championship, so very much a part of the booming city that never sleeps. They start early, late morning. And they finish late, early morning. But this early morning, with the clock closing in on 1:30, the Open stopped for Nadal. And the questions started anew.

Fognini, holding the last men’s seed, No. 32, was as bewildered as he was delighted with the 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over Nadal. “It’s something incredible I did,” said Fognini after the 3-hour, 46-minute match.

Or, considering the decline of Nadal, from No. 3 at the beginning of the year to No. 8 now, maybe something unexceptional.

“It was not so much a match that I lost,” said Nadal of the defeat, “even if I had opportunities. It’s a match he wins. Not happy, but I accept that he was better than me today.”

All four Grand Slams in 2015, the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and now the U.S. Open, some opponent has been better than Rafa. For the first time in 11 years he didn’t win a Slam. And even though Nadal only is 29, because of his aggressive, pounding style, and past injuries, he is an old 29.

In contrast, there’s Federer. Two years ago we thought he had slipped too far from his past glory. That having reached 30 — he will be 34 on Tuesday — it wasn’t so much the game had passed him by but others, Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and even on occasion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, were hitting passing shots by him. Father Time was hovering.

What do we know? While Nadal tumbled — and the dead of night, or somewhere beyond the bewitching hour, was a properly eerie time — Federer arose. The No. 2 seed in this Open, Federer blitzed Kohlschreiber, the No. 29 seed, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Federer may not have extended his all-time record of 17 Slam victories (his last was 2012 Wimbledon), but this year and last he was a Wimbledon finalist, losing to Djokovic, currently the world’s No. 1.

Where Nadal huffs, puffs and slugs, Federer glides and swings. His style has enabled him to avoid major injuries, and in an acknowledgement that maybe he’s lost a step or a couple inches of racquet speed, he has re-invented himself, moving up to the base line at times to take second serves.

Where Nadal is disappointed, although telling us there’s been progress, mentally at last, Federer is content.  “I feel good,” he said after a match that went barely past an hour and a half. “I have had a nice schedule.  Played early the first day. It was a fast match.

“And when I played at night,” he said of his win Thursday over Steve Darcis, “I played the first slot (7 p.m. EDT). I didn’t get to bed too late. I’m still in a normal schedule, which is good to be. Because if you finish a match like Fognini and Rafa, it’s hard to go to sleep anyway. It can be 3 or 4 in the morning.”

It was later than that for Nadal and Fognini. They were doing post-match interviews well past 2 a.m.  “It was an incredible match for sure,” said Fognini. It was a telling match for sure for Nadal.

“We can be talking for an hour trying to create a reason,” said Nadal. A Spaniard, he speaks English well enough, but doesn’t always choose the proper idiom or tense.

“But the sport for me is simple, no?,” said Nadal. “If you are playing with less confidence and you are hitting balls without creating the damage on the opponent that I believe I should do, then they have the possibility to attack.

“I want the defense, a little bit longer, and hit easier winners. Have been a little bit tough for me to hit the winners tonight. But that’s it. Not a big story. Is just improve small things that make a big difference.”

Federer went to bed before the Nadal story was told, and no matter what Rafa says it’s a very big story.

“I heard the news when I woke up,” Federer said about Nadal losing. “I wish I did see the match because I didn’t expect it to be this thrilling, but that would have been bad preparation for my match today.”

A match that was as different from Nadal’s as night is from day.

S.F. Examiner: Another ‘sad moment’ for fading Nadal

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

It wasn’t going to happen again to Rafael Nadal. He was healthy. Along with every other tennis star, he had an extra week of preparation on grass, a surface played so infrequently.

He came into Wimbledon, won his opening match and told us, “I’m a little bit more confident now than I was a few months ago. Let’s say I’m playing more solidly.”

Read the full story here.

©2015 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Federer, Nadal remain compelling through nature’s obstacles

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

WIMBLEDON, England — One is too old — at least we think so, even if Roger Federer doesn’t — and the other is too worn out. Tennis is a sport for the young, isn’t it? And the physically fit, which Rafael Nadal seems to be only occasionally. But there are no logical parameters for either of these two.

Federer should have retired a couple of years back. The man will be 34 in a few weeks, ancient for running backs or guys running down backhands. Nadal should have fallen apart a few years ago. First there were the troublesome knees, then the back. He seemed to spend more time in rehab than on court.

Read the full story here

©2015 The San Francisco Examiner