The 59e episode held in suspense until past one o’clock in the morning: after yet another memorable duel, Rafael Nadal defied logic against Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals of Roland-Garros on Tuesday evening.
For a place in the final, he will face world number 3 Alexander Zverev, who fell for the Spanish phenomenon Carlos Alcaraz.
Even with a less than ideal preparation, Nadal, like at home on Parisian clay where he triumphed 13 times, had promised to “try with all his might”. He clung to his profession of faith until the night of Tuesday to Wednesday to bite the dust at world number 1 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7 / 4) in 4 hours and 12 minutes. Not without having discarded two fifth-inning balls.
A fatigue fracture to a rib two months before Roland-Garros? A season on ocher launched later than ever? A new blow ten days from the Parisian Grand Slam when his left foot, eaten away by an illness he describes as “chronic and incurable” since he was 18, betrayed him once again? A fight of almost four and a half hours in five rounds 48 hours before attacking Djokovic?
Nothing, ever, is impossible for the Mallorcan champion with a thousand injuries and a thousand and one rebirths who will celebrate his 36th birthday on Friday.
A duel of titans
How to take the measure of this 59th face-to-face between the two giants who have maintained for 16 years the rivalry that has become the most prolific in men’s tennis?
This is the first match between two players at the head of a collection of at least 20 Grand Slam trophies (21 for Nadal, 20 for Djokovic). The first also between two players who have accumulated over their exceptional careers more than 1000 victories on the circuit and more than 300 in Grand Slam.
For a time, for almost an hour and a half, Nadal, the whole stadium or almost won over to his cause, went it alone: until leading 6-2, 3-0 double break, he recited his tennis as in a dream. Djokovic, of course, recovered, and a 6-1 inflicted on “Rafa” later, the two players were tied one set everywhere. Still fiercely determined despite the passage of time, the Spaniard returned to battle as if nothing had happened. After three hours of play, it was he who took the lead, two sets to one.
But even after midnight, even after three hours of play, even with his back to the wall, “Djoko” did not give up. At 5 games to 4, he twice went within a run of a fifth inning. In vain. Because no one has a head as hard as the Mallorcan left-hander, finally victorious in the decisive game.
Djokovic will not join Nadal in the number of Grand Slam crowns at the end of this 2022 edition of Roland-Garros. “Rafa” even has an opportunity to escape in the lead.
End of series for Alcaraz
Earlier, it was Alcaraz’s dream of winning a first Grand Slam trophy just two months after turning 19 that vanished.
Presented as a serious contender for the trophy after his hair-raising spring – an ambition assumed by the young Spaniard, already world number 6 at 19 – he was stopped by Zverev, winner 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 7 -6 (9/7) after failing to convert a fifth inning tiebreaker.
From Barcelona to Paris, via Madrid, the young Murcian remained on a series of 14 games won consecutively. But Zverev, powerless in early May in the final in the Spanish capital (6-3, 6-1) against the fury d’Alcaraz, took his revenge on Parisian clay. “I told him he was going to win this tournament not once, but many times. I hope I can win it before he starts beating us all and we don’t have a chance, “joked the 25-year-old German, still looking for a first Grand Prix title. Slam.
Zverev, however, did not avoid a few scares: first when he was very feverish – two second balls at 119 km / h and 133 km / h punished by two winning returns – and saw his broken serve broken in return when he served for the game at 5-4, and then when Alcaraz got a 6-5 fifth-inning pointer in the tiebreak.
“I got over it,” said the tall German (1.98 m), already semi-finalist in Paris a year ago.