Carnage continues in Miami: Nadal retires for first time since 2010

Roger Federer had already withdrawn from the Miami Open on Friday. The tournament figured it would not lose another greatest player of all time candidate one day later–not with Rafael Nadal going up against unheralded opponent Damir Dzumhur.

But that is exactly what happened, as round two of the Masters 1000 event produced additional carnage. On a scorching day in Miami, Nadal wilted amidst the brutal conditions and retired while trailing Damir Dzumhur 2-6, 6-4, 3-0. The Spaniard coasted through the opening set but visibly faded in the second, which led to his first retirement since the 2010 Australian Open quarterfinals against Andy Murray (a span of 442 matches).


“Everything was fine until end of the first set,” Nadal noted. “I start to feel myself not very good. It[was] getting worse, worse, and worse, so finally in the second set I realize that I was not able to keep playing. I tried to resist, but I [got] a little bit scared to be too dizzy. So I [called] the doctor a couple of times, but I felt that I was not safe. I wanted to finish the match, but I seriously could not.”

He wasn’t the only one. Thomaz Bellucci, Aljaz Bedene, and Sergiy Stakhovsky also retired. Sam Querrey probably should have.

Serving at 4-5 in the third set against Adrian Mannarino, Querrey completely shut down–apparently in both the mental and physical departments. He received a warning, reportedly for not giving an effort, and then incurred a match-ending point penalty at 0-40.

Querrey’s last serve (which came right after the umpire called a point penalty):

John Isner looked like he might retire against fellow American Tim Smyczek in their first set, as the world No. 13 struggled with a left-knee issue in addition to the heat. But he was saved, albeit temporarily, by cloud coverage and the setting sun. Isner righted the ship to force a third set but ultimately went down 6-2, 2-6, 7-6(5). He double-faulted twice in the third-set tiebreaker, including on match point. Isner’s last four losses have all come in third-set ‘breakers.

In other action on the Grandstand, Andrey Kuznetsov upset a listless Stan Wawrinka. The fourth-ranked Swiss served at a mere 54 percent, won just 65 percent of his first-serve points, and lost way more than half of his second-serve points (18 of 32).

“Today was very tough to play [in] this weather, with these conditions” Kuznetsov assured. “I think it actually helped me a little bit, because I saw that Stan was also struggling with moving.”

On this day, who wasn’t?

Photos courtesy of Miami Tennis News