Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, Mostly Strangers at Grand Slams, Will Play at French Open
In an age of great rivalries in men’s tennis, Rafael Nadal versus Andy Murray has been the one that keeps getting away.
When Nadal has been hot in recent seasons, Murray has been cold or hurting. When Murray has been hot, Nadal has been cold or hurting. And so on.
But this year’s swing on European clay has put these old friends back in touch. The men’s game, already in fine fettle, is only better for it, and they will meet on Friday in the semifinals of the French Open.
It will be their second match in a month after the hard-fought quarterfinal won by Nadal, 1-6, 6-3, 7-5, in Rome. But it will be their first meeting in a Grand Slam event in nearly three years, and they very nearly had to wait another day to assure the date.
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They played their quarterfinals on Wednesday simultaneously: Murray against the Frenchman Gaël Monfils on the main Chatrier Court, Nadal against his Spanish compatriot David Ferrer on the smaller Lenglen Court — a chauvinistic arrangement given that Nadal is an eight-time champion here and played Ferrer in last year’s final.
But Murray and Nadal were battling not just dangerous opponents, but the light, after the start of play was pushed back several hours because of rain.
After Nadal and Ferrer split the first two sets with shadows obscuring the court, it seemed all but certain that they would need to return Thursday. So it also seemed when Monfils rallied from a two-set deficit to push Murray into a fifth set.
But in similar ways and by similar scores, Nadal and Murray finished their night’s work in an astonishing hurry. Nadal won 13 of the last 14 games against the usually tenacious Ferrer to win, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0, 6-1.
Murray rolled through the fifth set in 24 minutes without dropping a game to win by the unusually turbulent score of 6-4, 6-1, 4-6, 1-6, 6-0.
“My fifth set went up in smoke,” Monfils said, offering up a line that was much better than his tennis in the final set.
As he left the Chatrier stands, Guy Forget, a former French Davis Cup captain, said: “It’s sad. All that work to get back in the match, and then that.”
Even for the unpredictable Monfils, this was a new standard of implosion. Speaking sotto voce with his arms folded, he seemed mystified by his collapse but guessed that it was because he was pressing: Sensing that Murray was vulnerable, he was going for too much and wanting to finish him off before it got too dark. Like most observers, he had the impression that Murray wanted to stop after the fourth set, but Murray insisted that was not the case despite his discussion with the tournament referee Stefan Fransson on court.
“I didn’t want to stop the match either,” Murray said. “I asked what the situation was. It was 20 past 9. I was told we had 20 minutes left, so you could potentially play two or three games in that time. Six was the maximum you could play.”
Six was all he needed, and he is back in the semifinals for the second time since losing to Nadal in 2011 and back in a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time since having back surgery late last year.
“It’s definitely a big achievement, but that’s not what I came here to do,” said Murray, the seventh seed, who is guaranteed to move back into the top five in the rankings. “My goals are different, and my expectations are different to a lot of people. I expect a lot of myself. I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well at these events, and thankfully, I have done O.K. so far. Still hopefully a long way to go in the tournament.”
To keep going, he will have to do what only Robin Soderling has managed at Roland Garros: beat Nadal, whose French Open record is a scarcely believable 64-1.
“For me, it’s incredible, too,” Toni Nadal, his uncle and coach, said Wednesday night. “When I see the numbers of Rafael, it’s difficult to understand. I thought that what Bjorn Borg did was not possible to replicate.”
Instead, Nadal has gone above and beyond. Borg, the great and unflappable Swedish master of topspin, won six French Open titles from 1974 to 1981 and had a 49-2 career record at Roland Garros.
For further comparison, consider Pete Sampras, who won a record-tying seven singles titles at Wimbledon and was 63-7 at the All England Club. Or Chris Evert, who won a record seven French Open singles titles and retired with a 72-6 record in Paris.
Nadal has just turned 28 and is still in his prime, though he has not been at his best this spring, losing three times on clay, including a defeat against Ferrer in Monte Carlo. But Nadal remains a supreme athlete and an imposing presence, one who appears to be regathering strength and belief, even if his serve and backhand have been less consistently penetrating than usual.
His forehand, however, was a whipping marvel down the stretch against Ferrer, who faded meekly in the dusk and, remarkably, acknowledged as much. “I threw in the towel,” he said. “It’s not something I usually do, but I sensed I could not come back.”
Murray, with his great two-handed backhand and bigger bag of tricks, should be harder to hurt and discourage, even though Nadal has never lost to Murray on clay and holds a 14-5 edge over all.
Nadal has often been Murray’s Grand Slam roadblock, beating him three straight times in major semifinals in 2011. It is perhaps no coincidence that Murray’s two major singles titles — the United States Open in 2012 and Wimbledon last year — came when he did not have to face Nadal.
But Murray is a Grand Slam champion, too, possessing the inner belief that comes with that. And this duel — hopefully in brighter light than Wednesday provided — is long overdue.
