It will be a figurative and possibly literal last-man-standing kind of battle when Rafael Nadal goes up against Taylor Fritz in the BNP Paribas Open final.
The road to Sunday’s championship was an absolutely wild one for both players. Nadal should have been out of the tournament right away to Sebastian Korda, but the Spaniard recovered from a double-break down in the third set to survive. He beat Nick Kyrgios in a three-setter on Thursday and needed three hours and 12 minutes to get past Carlos Alcaraz in the semis. Fritz went to third-set tiebreakers in consecutive matches against Jaume Munar and Alex de Minaur before requiring three more sets to defeat Miomir Kecmanovic in the quarters.
Not too surprisingly, both guys are dealing with potential injury issues. Nadal’s chronic foot condition bothered him against Dan Evans and Reilly Opelka in the third and fourth round, respectively, and he took a medical timeout in the third set against Alcaraz for an apparent pectoral problem. Fritz tweaked an ankle late in his semifinal win over Andrey Rublev.
Hopefully those factors won’t impact what has been a perfect season for Nadal and a dream fortnight for Fritz.
Nadal is 20-0 in 2022 and has won the Melbourne 250, Australian Open, and in Acapulco. With his five most recent victories he is now 59-10 lifetime in Indian Wells with titles in 2007, 2009, and 2013.
The best tennis of Fritz’s career dates back to Indian Wells last fall, when he made a semifinal run at what is quite obviously his favorite tournament. Since that point in time he is 25-8 in the span of 33 matches, including a 13-4 record this year. The 20th-ranked American is 14-5 lifetime in the desert after enjoying the biggest moment of his career with Saturday’s 7-5, 6-4 upset of Rublev.
“It’s like — I said it yesterday — it’s like those moments are the reason why I wanted to be an athlete, wanted to play professional tennis,” Fritz said. “It’s the best part of it all.”
Now he faces the tour’s current best player.
“The worst thing (about playing against Nadal),” Fritz explained, “is probably just knowing that he’s just going to keep fighting, he’s always going to be there every point, he’s not going to like give you anything, it’s just the competitiveness–like, he’s always going to want it so bad.
“The best thing is…I’m not going to get completely served off the court. I can potentially get looks at return games. But he’s such a good returner that it kind of works the other way; he’s going to get looks at my serves. I’ve been serving great all week, but he’ll still return my serve.”
Nadal has been withstanding anything thrown at him in 2022, and Sunday should be no different. Although an upset would not come as a huge shock given the circumstances of the overall fortnight for both players, it’s impossible to pick against the 21-time Grand Slam champion right now.
Pick: Nadal in 2
Nadal wins a few points, all of a sudden foot is feeling better. No more limping Lol
Hi Anonymous, do not who you are. All of us are guessing and only Rafa and his teams knows the truth. Same thing is with Fritz. But do not speculate one of them are faking injuries. none of us there competing there other than those two. so have some respect.
Ikam,
But he doesn’t have any respect! You can see that from the crap he posts. He is just trying to annoy Rafa fans by talking trash. He is a pure troll. A person who has nothing better to do than goon a tennis forum to say vicious things about a tennis player. That’s a life? I don’t think so.
He should have been banned long ago.
one advice: don’t feed the trolls. It’s as simple as that. Reject the bait
Agree.
The Fritz team told him not to play. Why?? He looked fine to me. Congrats to him for his first big title!
Go home Rafa and get some much needed rest and ready yourself for the clay season‼️VAMOS
I think just because its final he is not retiring. just hoping he can work his way out. keeping fingers crossed.
Keeping fingers crossed GTFO
DOnot Curse. WHo is admins here. do you allow to use these words on your blog??
Precisely!! This is not that kind of site! We don’t swear but have friendly discourse!!
Please scroll up, and check your language first.
Fritz has to work on his all court game and net game to go the next level.
How arsey was that; Nadal hit the edge of the baseline off a miss-hit.
I said Nadal is pushing things by playing the post-AO hard court season.
But Nadal knew best again and now risks the clay court season.
It was a high risk play.
Sigh, that’s y I HATE early breaks!!
Hope rafa holds his serve after long game. Fritz played this game really well.
Yes!! Fritz is certainly giving a good account of himself here and so he should!! Especially for someone who has foot issue!!
Agree. looks more like he is closer to win. nothing looks right for rafa. too many mistakes. and fritz is playing good as well saving all BP. no doubt. next game crucial for both of them.
Finally its over. Well deserved win for fritz
Totally, Rafa was absolutely trash in that match!! Soooooo many blown chances it just made no sense to me!!!!
He needs to go rest and prepare for RG!!!!
Well done Fritz though!! Happy he made his home town proud!!
This is too harsh. He was clearly hobbled. Martina Navritilova just mentioned that she noticed Rafa had even altered his forehand swing to put less strain on his pectoral muscles. And, you could see his serve speed was considerably down today.
Fritz played a great match and it was good to see his dream come true. Rafa just had bad luck but nothing changes. He is still the best in the world in 2022 and he’ll be unstoppable in in the European clay court season. Just got to manage the foot because I don’t think this pectoral injury is a major issue.
VR,
Thank you for speaking up. I feel the same way. Rafa was in obvious pain. It was clearly hampering him. I hope it is not serious. He needs a break. If he had to lose to someone, at least it was a good guy like Fritz Taylor. A Masters win here was a dream come true.
I don’t know how Rafa got this injury. We were so worried about the foot. I just want Rafa to have a nice break and get into fighting shape for the clay season.
The wind was moving the ball all over the place and some of the shots was undoubtedly his out of position. It was just a bad movement and being almost 36 makes you more vulnerable.
Yesterday in the presser Rafa downplayed this injury and thought it won’t affect him much but he’ll only find out once he wakes up. I am sure he’ll be fine with some left and physiotherapy.
Feeling very confident heading into the clay season.
VR,
I thought about hue he struggled in the wind yesterday to try and hit the ball. He was straining at times. I think that may have done it. Such a shame because of the stupid wind.
I really wish people would think before they go off on Rafa. He’s done so much and it’s been great to see. He just had a bit of bad luck with this injury. It’s in a place where it causes a lot of pain and can interfere with your ability to hit your shots and serve.
Go to Indian Wells press conferences 2022 and listen to Rafa’s. I really felt sorry for him. He said he was sad because he wasn’t able to compete in this final like he wanted. It was a good interview. He was very cordial about Taylor and how he played. But Rafa was clearly hampered…….I guess the strained muscle was causing breathing difficulty. I hope he hasn’t torn something…….worse case scenario.
How long will it take for the pectoral issue to resolve ? I’m just worried it’s just before clay
It’s quite frustrating seeing Rafa playing this way with so many mistakes, but he’s struggling to win his matches at IW this year. He having come this far even without playing his best tennis is already impressive.
Rafa can now go and rest and recover, and then prepares for the clay season. I can relax a bit now, as without Rafa at Miami, I need not worry about him and his matches. I may even skip many Miami matches and only watch some, no need to wake up at 3am or 6am to watch Rafa’s matches!
Oh and congrats to Fritz, he seems a nice guy, and he’s so happy (in tears) winning this IW Masters title! It means a lot to win Masters title(s); it’s good to see younger players are starting to win them now (though not wanting them to win against Rafa) – Fritz, Hurkacz, Norrie, Tsitsipas. Meddy and Zverev are already multiple Masters winners.
Djokovic must be relieved now that Rafa did not match his record 🙂
Djoko won’t be bothered about this when he has his 41 matches winning streak.
Rafa’s 20 match wins in a row is really impressive, considering his age at 35; Djoko’s 26 matches were done in 2020 when he’s 32/33 over a stretch of eight months – from ATP cup to USO that year but no matches during the clay season, he was 18-0 from ATP cup to Dubai that year.
Djoko’s 41 matches winning streak was done in 2011 when he’s 23/24 years old! I feel that Alcaraz may have a chance to match or surpass that in future, given how promising he is now. I think he may be able to do that when/if he can win on HC and on clay.
Fine start to the year for Rafa but Federers 2017 streak was even more amazing in that he had to beat Nadal several times.
The Miami bracket challenge is open already…no rest
Don’t agree..the nadal at start of year was also a nadal back from injury.. it was not the rafa 2014 n before rafa beating med this year rates higher than fed beating rafa in 17. The 3 titles though of fed were better as it was a slam n 2 masters
Sanju, you didnt agree ,because you focussed on the beating of Nadal but I took other factors into account like winning the Sunshine Double .And of course later Wimbledon.
Nadal just back from injury at the AO 2017 doesnt mean he wasnt at or close to his best after he beat in-form Zverev, Dimitrov and Raonic all in five if I remember right. Of course it could be argued he was tired after all those matches.
But Rafa himself was just back from injuries in 2017.
Fed in 2017 was maybe like Rafa now in 2022, when Rafa had to beat the no 2 guy in Meddy, twice, in Djoko’s absence. Meddy didn’t make it to the SF at IW to meet Rafa for a third time though. Not forgetting Meddy is so much younger then Rafa, ten years younger to be exact and is peaking in his career.
In a way a loss is good and I frankly care a damn about this loss. If there was a streak ,it would continue on clay and there would be pressure of the streak ..so good it ended if you look at it..
All i want is an update from Rafa that it’s a basic pull n will get okay in 6-8 days of rest
And these djoko fans ..god I’m tired of them…they are saying the breathing issue is the vaccine side effect and that’s why djoko is right in refusing it ..like seriously vaccine side effect ? He injured himself in a movement yesterday ..he said he feels a pain when breathing as the muscle is pector near the chest .he never said he is finding it tough to breathe – you dumbwit morons . These molefarms are sick to the core (not talking of the sane ones but then he hardly has any sane ones )
And this article says fans worried bit is filled with Novak fans comments lol
https://www.google.com/amp/s/newsable.asianetnews.com/amp/sports/tennis-indian-wells-rafael-nadal-reveals-breathing-difficulties-leaves-fans-worried-snt-r93rll
I am going to scream if I read one more thing about the vaccine causing Rafa’s breathing problems! Enough with this nonsense! It is sheer insanity!
If you ever had a rib injury, then you know how painful and uncomfortable it is. It can make you feel like you can’t breathe. I don’t know that this is the problem, but anything with the rib can make you feel like you can’t breathe. I had a rib injury and it was extremely painful.
lol! I’m surprised they don’t put his foot problem down to the vaccine. Well, they really don’t think all that fast, do they? All that sweating – must be due to the vaccine! At the time Rafa speculated that his chest pain was due to a “bad movement”. Maybe. He was pulling off some pretty fancy reaction volleys late in his quarterfinal.
I’ve read a couple of more sensible “diagnoses”, but I think I’ll just wait to hear what Rafa says about it.
Ramara,
Yes! How come they do not attribute the foot problem to the vaccine? It is getting way out of hand.
When I watched the replay of the match with Alcaraz, I saw Rafa contorting himself to try and get his racket on the ball.
I do hope that it’s something that ge can recover from quickly. He looked like he was in so much pain in the trophy ceremony.
Thats true. I once had a really bad cough and chest was so sore I struggled to breathe
Lol!! I know what Rafa means, I sat badly while watching one of the matches incidentally and when i got off the chair I realised that i strained a muscle in my back. It was so painful, up to now i still feel the pain in the middle of my back and I found it hard to stand up, laugh or even breathe too hard. That was over a 3 day period but it has gotten better. So if it’s a tear, which won’t surprise me after all this tennis, Rafa would have been in much pain. Now as for those who are taking about vaccine effect……..pffffffff!!!
Hope Rafa gets better soon. Vamos, Champ!!! You have made us incredibly proud and we love you very much, even though u always give us grief and heart attack!! We have chest pain too, lol!! Looking forward to the clay season!
Ha ha Monalisa you’re so funny! Yes, Rafa is causing us grief and chest pain time and again, and sometimes we may have difficulties breathing! But, he also brings us tremendous joy like at the AO this year for example.
We are going through thick and thin with Rafa and for many years already! I think his chest pain now may be some muscle pulls (nothing to do with the ribs I hope, anything concerning the bone would be very painful).
I hope he’s fine and ready for the clay season. Vamos Rafa!
Europe is getting another wave of Covid ..Italy is shooting up cases. So don’t rejoice too soon Novak fans ..u never know when the vaccine mandates come back ..
Rafa out for 6 weeks with rib stress fracture
That is what I was afraid of. When he talked about difficulty breathing I was worried that it might be a rib fracture. He was in so much pain. I never fractured my rib, but I have strained it enough to cause a great deal of pain.
This is not good news at all.
Rome starts may 9( 7th week ) . Rg starts may 22( 9th week).key dates