Rafael Nadal found a difficult opponent in Gilles Muller in the third round. Muller was playing into the rallies, sometimes slugging it out from the baseline, sometimes following the serve to the net for volley. He was very comfortable in the rallies in the first two service games. It was Nadal who was made to do harder work in his service games. It was partly because Muller was a left hander too. Nadal’s excessively spun forehand tends to go to the back hand of the right handers and cause trouble on the bounce. But these were going to forehand of Muller and with his good height of 6 ft. 4 inches, Muller was able to cope up with them without difficulty. He was playing an unorthodox game to befuddle the opponent. What would be his next move was unpredictable. He was springing surprises by rushing to the net when least expected. Muller was untroubled in his service games. His serves were unreturnable by Nadal. He was not able to extend Muller into rallies. He was not able to read Muller’s service. Muller would serve wide while Nadal would move towards his left anticipating serve on the the T. With Muller serving at 88%, there were few opportunities for Nadal. On his own serve, he had to win the point through rallies since Muller was able to return the serve mostly. Nadal was serving first serves at 59% which is below his usual target. The first 11 games consumed only 3 minutes each on an average which is much below the 4.5 seconds Nadal’s matches take. Muller made move in the twelfth game and got two set points on Nadal’s serve. When he failed to capitalise on them, he had not only missed the golden opportunity but also awakened the tiger in Nadal. Tie breaker arrived. Nadal stood much closer to the baseline than in the earlier matches. Muller started with an ace and broke Nadal on the very first serve. It was the power and the depth on his ground strokes that were troubling Nadal. He was putting in almost all his first serves. On top of it, Nadal badly slipped at 5-4 and appeared to injure his right knee. Muller made it 6-6 in the tie breaker to change the ends. He was serving much better than Nadal, but served a double fault to give set point to Nadal on his own serve. Nadal made no mistake on the opportunity gifted to him when he sent down an unreturnable serve down the T. The tie breaker was over 8-6, but Nadal called the trainer. Before he could come, the rain came and the play was suspended.
Muller had matched Nadal shot by shot and he continued to do so when the play resumed the next day. His serves were usually winners and he won most of the points on his first serve. Nadal was not able to return deep and his returns were mostly sitting up in the middle of the court. Nadal was making very few errors and yet he was unable to stop Muller from winning points. In the first 22 games, Muller had come 23 times to the net and won most of the points. In the rallies too, Muller was able to stay toe to toe making Nadal work hard to win his service games. The tie break arrived in due course. Muller was not threatened on his serve until the eleventh point when a backhand error into the net from Muller gave Nadal a mini break. Nadal did not look back and served out the tie break 7-5. The pressure on Nadal could be gauged from the fact that he did not commit a single unforced error in the second set and yet found it difficult to get past Muller. Muller won almost all his first serve points.
In the third set, things changed. Muller was broken in the very first game. Nadal started forcing errors from Muller's racquet. In the next service game, Muller committed double fault on the third breakpoint after saving two of them. In his third service game, Muller again committed double fault at deuce and gifted a break point to Nadal. Nadal obliged and went up 5-0. He promptly served out the set and took the match 7-6 7-6 6-0.
No comments:
Post a Comment