Roger Federer had already withdrawn from the Miami Open on Friday.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):
SQ's last serve pic.twitter.com/PInYi9sBWK
— marjony (@_marjony_) March 27, 2016
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
I add an excerpt from the transcript of Rafa’s post-match press conference that contains two more Q&A:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CegebX9WsAE-nS_.jpg
(I posted the same excerpt in the thread “Miami R2 previews and picks: Nadal vs. Dzumhur…” yesterday.)
I didn’t know how Querrey lost. But that picture of his last serve isn’t coming up anymore. Sometimes maybe it’s better to just retire when you clearly aren’t up to playing.
I also didn’t realize that the last time Rafa had to retire was at the 2010 AO. That’s quite a long time for him to go without having to do that.
We still don’t know if it was the heat or some kind of viral thing.
(I repost also an excerpt from the article I posted in the thread “Miami R2 previews and picks: Nadal vs. Dzumhur…” lots of hours ago)
Miami Herald, March 26, 2016: ¤¤ Rafael Nadal retires from his opening match at the Miami Open.
“Even with very bad conditions, I have finished a lot of matches in my career because I didn’t want to retire,” he [Rafa] said. “I have felt this way in Australia a couple of times, but [Saturday] was worse. I was struggling for my health, so I decided to stop because I was not sure that I could finish the match that way.
“Hopefully, it is just the extreme conditions combined with the start of a virus.” ¤¤
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/tennis/article68425522.html#storylink=cpy¤¤
commies to nadline10.