Rafael Nadal meets Novak Djokovic at the net after winning their French Open quarterfinal, in Paris on May 31.PETE KIEHART/The New York Times News Service
The this-is-the-end-for-Rafael-Nadal industry has been running hot for more than a decade, since he suffered the first of many knee injuries. His knees, his elbows, his back, his wrist – every joint in Nadal’s body has cost him time and money over the years. No great in sports history has been prematurely retired more often.
This guessing game is so much fun that Nadal, who turns 36 on Friday, recently hopped on the trend. He came into this year’s French Open suffering from a pernicious and apparently unfixable foot injury.
“Every match I play here at Roland Garros, I don’t know if it’s going to be the last match I play here in my career,” the Spaniard said earlier in the week.
If it’s not his aching feet, it’s the hours he has to keep. Nadal publicly pressed organizers to schedule his matches in the afternoon session. Maybe it’s because the clay runs faster in the midday heat, or maybe it’s because he prefers an early dinner before Jeopardy! starts.
It was this creaky, cranky, rapidly aging and probably already finished has-been who faced world No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Tuesday night. Together, the pair produced another minor classic.
Nadal won it in the end, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6. He is now the prohibitive favourite to win this year’s French Open.
That’s the news, but it’s not the story. The winner and loser of this encounter now matters less than the feeling that we are seeing the end of the last great rivalry in men’s tennis. With Roger Federer gone in every sense but literal, Nadal and Djokovic are what remains from the peak era of men’s tennis.
It’s a mug’s game to claim this or that player will never be matched. They always are. But three players, all with good claims on being the best ever, all operating at their height at the same time? That won’t happen again.
Like Nadal, this golden age has been ending for so long it feels as if it’s been buried and dug up again a half-dozen times. But if Nadal is right and he hasn’t got long left, we have to appreciate it while we have a chance. And it is especially urgent we appreciate him at his personal grand slam.
In a nice mirror of history, the two met for the first time in the quarter-finals of another French Open – the 2006 version.
Since then, they’ve played 59 times. Fifty of those matches have been semi-finals or finals. But as their shared grip on the men’s game loosens, these meetings are coming earlier in tournaments.
Two years ago, Nadal vs. Djokovic was the final at Roland Garros. Last year, it was the semis. This time it’s the quarters.
Tuesday’s match didn’t start until after 9 p.m. local time. Never much of a fashion plate, Djokovic wore red and white. Nadal came dressed as a Chiquita banana spokesmodel. At least he didn’t wear pyjamas.
It took Nadal three tries to break Djokovic’s serve in the first game, which lasted more than 10 minutes. You could feel the audience reaching for their phones to text the babysitter: ‘We might be late.’
Apparently, the word injury means something different to Nadal than it does to the rest of us. He ran circles around the indefatigable Djokovic in the early going. He took nine of the first 11 games.
But even up two breaks in the second set, you could feel the crowd hesitating. The French love Nadal, but they hate getting it wrong more. They were waiting for the Serb to join the festivities before laying their bets.
In mid-career, Djokovic’s closest athletic comparison point is Muhammad Ali. When faced with top competition, he is happy to let you think you’re winning, while you are actually just exhausting yourself.
Down two breaks in the second set, Djokovic began applying gas. That evened the match at one set apiece.
After being pulled around the court for four-plus hours by Montreal’s Félix Auger-Aliassime in the round-of-16, the general presumption was that Nadal would show up exhausted.
“I’m glad I didn’t spend too much time on the court myself up until the quarter-finals,” Djokovic said archly before it started.
Nadal broke Djokovic to start the third set. And a happy thought occurred to you – ‘Here we go.’
Nadal pressed his advantage through the third set. In the fourth, Djokovic came on again. He was up 5-2. But old man Nadal stuck a hand out of the grave. He came back to win the deciding set in a tiebreak.
The scores do not adequately reflect the savagery of the tennis. When you read ‘6-4′ you get one idea about a set of tennis. When you hear it took 88 minutes to play it, you have a very different impression. Call this one a narrow victory for experience over technique, or maybe history over progress.
A few hours before this small masterpiece was painted, the presumptive star of the next era of men’s tennis was on the same court.
Carlos Alcaraz, 19, looks a lot like Nadal after a few full-body blood transfusions. Their games share that unusual mix of exuberance and patience.
Alcaraz gets around the court as well or better than anyone playing, but his preferred weapon is the drop shot. The second way he gets you? Fist pumps. Nobody has fist pumped like this kid since a young Nadal made the gesture a tennis cliché.
Alcaraz lost to Alexander Zverev, but he lost with élan. By the end, Zverev looked terrified.
After getting away with one, the German did an on-court, post-match interview. Speaking in English, he told a mildly appalled Paris audience that he’d been doing something highly unsanitary in his pants as the match tightened up. You didn’t get the sense that he is looking forward to the next time.
In large part due to his novelty, Alcaraz was the most electric player at this French Open. The future belongs to him (and, just maybe, one or two Canadians).
But if Nadal vs. Djokovic is what the past looks like, the future can wait a bit.