Wimbledon, England
He neither rejoiced nor preened nor fist-pumped. He did puff out a quick burst of air. “A lot of relief,” he said.
On a comfortable summer Monday night that figures to fasten itself to the memory banks of those who gasped and murmured and hollered at Court No. 1, Wimbledon had another of the matches that make it Wimbledon. By the time Gilles Muller finished upsetting Rafael Nadal, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 15-13, it seemed a technicality that Nadal would exit in the fourth round after his imperious late spring and early summer. Everything on an overloaded fourth-round day at the All England Lawn Tennis Club gave way to a sole set stuffed to the gills with frenzy.
It lasted 28 games, 135 minutes, 176 points, umpteen dizzying twists, four match points against Nadal, 18 aces (11 by Muller), 27 unforced errors (only eight from Nadal), merely 10 break points, one lonely service break at the close and 34 cases from Muller of an ancient art the 34-year-old must have found in the cobwebs of some Wimbledon storage area: the serve and volley. Swells of applause greeted the finish, in multiple waves, a final one after Nadal plied his customary good manners to wait for Muller to pack his bag, then waved amiably to a crowd that favored him decidedly.
“Probably was not my best match,” Nadal said, “but at the same time, I played against a very uncomfortable opponent.”
“I had those match points before,” Muller said, referring to the two in the ninth game and the two in the 20th. “I mean, the noise the crowd made every time he saved a match point was just massive. So, yeah, at that moment (when he just stood), I think also in my head I was thinking, ‘We have to finish this now, or otherwise we’re going to come back tomorrow.’ I knew it was going to be maybe another 10, 15 more minutes maximum.
“Yeah, just a lot of relief to finally get it done.”
As secondary subplots to the 15-13, the guy with two career ATP Tour titles outlasted the guy with 73. The guy with zero Grand Slam titles outlasted the guy with 15, and the guy who squeaked into a second-ever Grand Slam quarterfinal, and a first in nine years, outlasted the guy who has been to 31 such occasions. When it’s 8:28 p.m. and the light is fading and Nadal is serving at 13-14, his unforgiving 10th straight service game trying to stay in the match, you know things have gone haywire.
Things had gone so haywire that the 15-13 threw the entire scheduling of the men’s singles into imbalance. It bumped its scheduled succeeding match clear into today, when Novak Djokovic and Adrian Mannarino will play the last men’s round-of-16 bout alongside the four women’s quarterfinals.
The 15-13 overshadowed a whole bale of things that were hard to overshadow. That includes Venus Williams becoming the oldest quarterfinalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994. That includes the first British female quarterfinalist since Jo Durie in 1984, the Australian-born, sixth-ranked Johanna Konta, who preceded Muller-Nadal on court with a 2-hour, 12-minute, 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4 survival of Caroline Garcia. It includes Konta’s next opponent, second-ranked Simona Halep, who ended Victoria Azarenka’s comeback by 7-6 (3), 6-2, for a shot at her first No. 1 ranking.
It includes2016 French Open champion and 2015 Wimbledon finalist Garbine Muguruza, whose 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Angelique Kerber plucked the latter from the summit. And it includes the Californian Coco Vandeweghe becoming a second-week Grand Slam mainstay at 25 after her 7-6 (4), 6-4 win over Caroline Wozniacki provided a second final eight this Grand Slam year.
“I definitely think the more you’re in those situations, the better you get at them,” Vandeweghe said. “I’ve definitely learned in different scenarios how to manage myself, just being in there and practicing in that environment. There’s no other way to simulate it besides being there. I don’t know if it’s necessarily a feeling of belonging, but a feeling of comfort in where you are.”
Muller and Nadal’s 15-13 came to overshadow that evolving player, not to mention another straight-set win for No. 1 Andy Murray, who lost Nadal from his half of the bracket, and another straight-set win for Roger Federer, looking again like Godzilla in easing past No. 11 Grigor Dimitrov, and the second straight Wimbledon quarterfinal for the American Sam Querrey, who toughed out a 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-7 (11), 6-3 win over fellow tall guy Kevin Anderson of South Africa, and will play Murray next.
There were five-setters, 31-year-old Tomas Berdych withstanding the onrushing Dominic Thiem, and the 2016 finalist Milos Raonic holding off 20-year-old Alexander Zverev.
All of it faded once the light faded and a crowd tried to bolster Nadal, who had not lost even a set through the French Open and the first three rounds of Wimbledon. He stuck with it through his failure to get any of four break points at 9-9, and a weird moment serving at 10-11 when glare bothered him and the chair umpire came down to check and then asked certain fans to stand to blunt the glare.
“I played with all my passion,” Nadal said.
Then, finally, just before he became the first of the men’s “Big Four” to depart, he served one last time, and he watched Muller’s careful backhand pass go by him up the line and trailed 0-15. Then he found himself understandably wrong-footed with Muller’s high forehand volley for 0-30. Soon, his racket made the sick sound of the ball striking the frame as his shot sprayed out of play for 15-40.
That gave the crowd at Court No. 1 the final of its innumerable gasps and murmurs before Muller played a fierce final point with a deep return and two groundstrokes driven to the sides until Nadal’s last forehand landed long and Muller just stood there.