Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will add a 39th match to their epic rivalry as the two biggest names in tennis hit the court in the BNP Paribas Open semifinals.
With his competitive straight-set victory over Karen Khachanov, a hobbled Nadal earned a spot across the net from Federer. Federer advanced to the semis earlier on Friday with a straight-set victory of his own (though more routine) over Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz.
The two men have played so often and in such high-stakes matches, that they are frequently referred to as the greatest tennis rivalry of all time. There was a period of time in the mid-naughts in which it was expected that Federer and Nadal would be the last two men standing. The rivalry has cooled off a bit in recent years, as first Nadal and most recently Federer dominated the other. This will be their first match since the 2017 Shanghai Masters. Federer has won their last five encounters, but Nadal owns a commanding lead in the head-to-head (23-15).
Fans and Indian Wells tournament director Tommy Haas will have to hope that Nadal is fit enough to compete on Saturday. The world No. 2 had treatment on his right knee in his win over Khachanov and seemed to be moving gingerly in the second set. He played well enough to down Khachanov 7-6(2), 7-6(2), but he’ll have to expect that an in-form Federer would put up an even bigger fight.
Federer, who endured a disappointing fourth round loss to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Australian Open, refound his form in Dubai a few weeks ago, where he exacted revenge on Tsitsipas in the title match.
The Swiss has breezed through the draw this week, though it should be noted that his highest-ranked opponent was No. 22 seed Kyle Edmund. Nadal has been similarly dominant, but the knee issue–a chronic problem for the Spaniard–is certainly cause for concern. If Nadal is anywhere close to 100 percent, expect a fiercely fought, entertaining match. If he is still in pain, Federer will run away with the match.
Cheryl pick: Federer in 3
Ricky pick: Federer in 2
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Doubt Rafa will even play this match
Yup. Could be the semifinal that never happened.
rafa is out
I dont know why he even fought through that. He knows that is a issue which if not rested causes long lay offs. If he plays tomorrow there is a risk of further damage. If he cannot play to the level he expects, he only dents his confidence further. The clay season is coming up where he wants to be at his healthiest. He is only competing for a masters semis spot. Why put the rest of the season in jeopardy. Unless it is the french open he is playing at it makes no sense whatsoever to play through pain, however small
Djokovic=federer
A fully healthy Nadal would be a slight underdog in this match, given Fed’s recent form and his 5 match win streak over him. An injured Nadal is a long-shot to win it, if the match happens at all. Rafa will probably have to wait until the clay season to reverse his fortunes against Federer. This year he may finally get his chance.
All depends on Rafa’s knee, because he looked fantastic in that tough 2nd set vs Knov……bum knee or no bum knee, he played lights out. Guess I’ll take Fed in 2.
6 AM California time as I write this. Hopefully Rafa’s still sound asleep. He usually gets up between 8 and 9. Probably will be much later before he decides whether he can play or not. He really wanted to last night – blood was up – but said he couldn’t tell how he’d be today. I really hope he doesn’t risk further injury – an IW semi-final just isn’t worth it to me – and Rafa’s not a risk-taker by nature except maybe when it comes to tennis…
Judging by how poorly he served here, I think Rafa came into IW with not so good right knee to begin with. I think it’s old problem (tendinitis) flaring up again. I can’t remember it’s his left or right knee that was giving him problem at the USO last year. Despite resting and recovering for four months before playing at the AO, it seems once he puts pressure on his knees, the problems resurface again! Maybe he really can’t afford to grind on the HCs anymore, perhaps his more aggressive game serves him better on the quicker HCs, like the AO; so all the more he should skip the HC tournaments this part of the season, ie after AO and before MC. It seems he’s doing better on the HCs that come after the FO and Wimbledon.
Kyrgios long match was a dampener. At his stage he cant have 2.5 hr+ matches.
Luckystar MARCH 16, 2019 AT 3:00 PM,
Rafa retired from the 2018 USO SF because of a right knee injury.
So it’s the right knee again! After a 4.5 months rest, played for two weeks and then took another one month off (in Feb), played two matches at Acapulco and then four matches here, his right knee couldn’t take it again! All in all he played 13 matches (14 if we include Abu Dhabi exho) with built in rest/recovery period in between and he still got injured. It seems that he’s getting injured more frequently as he gets older now.
Rafa is practicing. According to Nick Lester (tennis commentator), Rafa will take a decison after the practice session whether to play the SF match:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1106954850284113920
Seems like he ended the practice session after a few minutes. It’s not looking good, I think he’ll withdraw.
He practiced for 30 minutes.
Yes, he will withdraw I think.
Del (a Rafa fan) 4 minutes ago: “Rafa is not gonna play today, I hear on the world feed. But NOT official.”
Del (a Rafa fan) 1 min ago: “Just as I said 10 minutes ago, Rafa’s now OFFICIALLY withdrawn.”
He has withdrawn
Yep, it’s confirmed he has pulled out.
I think it’s a wise decision.
OFFICIAL. Rafa withdrew:
https://twitter.com/BNPPARIBASOPEN/status/1106977984936710144
Naturally, he won’t be playing at Miami, I feel. It’s good he’s giving his knee more rest and getting himself fit and ready for the clay season.
In the end, it’s wise for Rafa to withdraw not risking something more serious? Wait a minute: this sentence make no sense to me! Every injury ends up being serious to Rafa! No matter what he did or does he is destined to get injured and miss a big part of the season! Every time it happens it breaks my heart over again! I feel bad about Rafa for he could have done much more in his career…
I was grateful that Rafa fought last night to win the match despite his injury… i guess deep inside I thought Rafa would be fine to play today…Now I feel bad about it and about Khachanov… he would’ve been inspired to try to beat Fed…
Khachanov couldn’t beat a hobbling Rafa, don’t think he could beat Fed. Rafa played well to reach the SF and at least he didn’t suffer a loss here, I prefer him to withdraw after winning than to lose at the QF.
Rafa was playing well despite his Low %on his first serves. It seemed that his second serve won % had gone up, a bit strange with him. Imo, his game is where it should be except his first serves; as long as he’s fit, he should have good results on clay.
I do feel that it’s after the clay season is over that Rafa could relax a little and then plays well in general even on the HCs. His last three HC titles were won after Wimbledon – USO, Beijing, Toronto – so that shows he still can win big titles on the HCs, as long as he’s fit enough to play them.
Luckystar MARCH 16, 2019 AT 6:34 PM,
As for winning %, both his 1st and 2nd serve won % were higher than those in the 2018 season (on HC):
– 1st serve won: 71% in 2018, 77 % at IW;
– 2nd serve won: 55% in 2018, 66 % at IW.
Yearly statistics (including this year until IW):
https://www.atptour.com/en/players/rafael-nadal/n409/player-stats?year=2019&surfaceType=hard
Very wise decision by Rafa, imo. If he wants to have any chance at truly competing into his mid-30’s, he’s going to have to accept that he can no longer play anything close to a full schedule. I commend him for trying as hard as he can to keep trying to play all these hard Court tournaments. Like he said, he loves playing on all surfaces, it’s just that his body can’t take it. I personally found myself perplexed at why he even entered into Acapulco. The days of entering any non-Masters tournament should be over, barring maybe the warm-up before AO, and maybe the warm-up before Wimbledon.
As far as Masters go, I wonder what his game plan will be going forward. Imo, it would be very ill-advised for him to play both tournaments in either of the Hard court doubles (IW/Miami and Canada/Cinci). I also feel so bad for him that playing Davis Cup is just a bad idea now, as we all know he absolutely loves playing Davis Cup.
I know that what we as fans think doesn’t matter to him whatsoever, but there is nothing wrong with us discussing what we think we would do if we were in his shoes. I’d be interested to hear what some of you think an ideal schedule would be for Rafa going forward. If I were his manager/agent, I think I would propose the following schedule:
(Optional) Hopman Cup
Australian Open
Indian Wells
Madrid or Rome (not both)
Roland Garros
(Optional) grass warm-up (Halle or Queens)
Wimbledon
Canada
US Open
Tour Finals, if qualified
And that’s it. If he wants to be able to compete at the majors for as long as possible, at his healthiest and highest level, then I just don’t realistically see how he could play any more tournaments than that. Some of you might even think that’s too many tournaments? I’m curious to hear what others think.
Kevin MARCH 16, 2019 AT 6:21 PM,
Rafa’s provisonal schedule was published already in December. He says that his actual schedule will depend on his health.
https://e00-marca.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2018/12/22/15454755208532.jpg
Isn’t it natural that one has to cut down on the number of events played once in the thirties? Fed is already doing that a few years now; Djoko has played 15 or 16 events each year since becoming no.1 in 2011.
Fed played an average of 17 events a season from 2012 to 2015, ie from age 31 to 34. After he cut short his 2016 season due to injuries, he had skipped the clay season in 2017 and 2018 and had reduced the number of events played each season to about twelve.
Rafa has played about 17 events each season, and at age 31 in 2017, he played in 18 events (including WTF), plus Laver Cup. Imo, had he skipped Beijing or Shanghai that year, he could’ve avoided the injury that year.
It’s in 2018 that he suffered from multiple injuries – first hip at AO, knee at USO, abdominal muscle injury when he was about to play at Paris Masters, and then went for surgery on his ankle after that. He played only 9 events in 2018 because of multiple injuries.
I think Rafa should just play the following:
a warm up event
AO
MC
Barcelona
Rome
RG
Wimbledon
Canada or Cindy
USO
Shanghai
Paris
WTF (if qualify)
I feel he still can play well on the quick HCs where he doesn’t need to grind that much, and can make use of his new improved aggressive/offensive game. He won Canada in 2018, USO in 2017, Beijing in 2017, reached final of Shanghai in 2017, so he’s doing well on the HCs at that period of the season. Compare that to runner up at AO2017, 2019, final at Miami 2017 and now SF at IW 2019; certainly he fared better on the HC events played after Wimbledon.
I really think that he should avoid the slow HCs totally, as he has to grind more on them; on clay where he could slide around, and he’s confident to play his more aggressive game (wef 2017 and onwards), he doesn’t get himself injured. On grass and quick HCs, his serve plus FH combination will serve him well when his opponents have lesser time to react or counter it.
Luckystar MARCH 16, 2019 AT 7:16 PM,
Fed has skipped the clay season for the last three years, but he is going to play on clay again this year. So far, he has promised to play in Madrid and at Roland Garros.
Rafa played nine tournaments last year, retiring from 2 (AO qf and USO semi). He won MC, Barce, Rome and RG, lost in the qf in Madrid. Lost in semis in Wimbledon (playing 2 brutal 5 setters there back to back). That was it. Certainly his schedule was curtailed due to his knees, and other injuries, probably due to trying to play after the necessary time off for the knees to recover. I don’t see how he can play much less!
This year he played one match in Abu Dhabi, had no warm up tournament for AO, made the final handily but was simply not in good enough condition to trouble Djokovic at all. He played Acapulco, lost very early, then played 3 easy matches in IW, and suffered tendinitis problem early in the 2nd set of his 4th match. That’s after playing 7 sets! I really do not see how he can play less and still be a top pro player.
Moya says that Rafa must avoid the “epic” matches – a bit hard to do when you’re playing del Potro and Djokovic, Khachanov on a good day and Thiem. He’s tried to beef up Rafa’s serve to get more free and quick points thus shortening matches, which Rafa did really well in AO. But the fact is that tendinitis just does not seem to follow rules and can strike at any time – this from those who suffer from it. And once Rafa has to stop playing for a month or two he’s finding it increasingly difficult to get back into match shape without suffering “comeback injuries” – muscle pulls & strains – probably due to his age.
I am not feeling optimistic. Well, Rafa’s found some “miracle” medical treatments in the past. Maybe they’ll come up with something.
Ramara, those grueling matches vs Thiem or Khachanov for examples could be avoided IF Rafa could serve better. He didn’t serve well during USO last year, hence he couldn’t earn cheap points and so had to grind.
In fact, he didn’t serve well all of 2018, that’s because of his injury issues. In 2017, he served well esp with an improved second serve, and so he could win on clay without grinding and even won Beijing and reached final of Shanghai with more aggressive play. He got injured at Shanghai because he overplayed (played Laver Cup and didn’t have enough rest after that before playing the Asian swing, imo the injury could be avoided if he skipped Beijing).
Moya is right in helping Rafa shortening points (thus reducing the grinding) by beefing up his serve plus his FH, its just that Rafa has to get used to playing that way.
Rafa didn’t serve well at IW, I suspect that’s because after his grueling match vs Kyrgios at Acapulco, his knee was affected. With a better serve and playing shorter points, the knee issue could be avoided imo.
For what it’s worth, Rafa has not played a grass warmup tournament for the last few years. So I don’t see why he would add it to his schedule now. The idea is that the clay season takes a lot out of him. Since he has RG so many times, he is feels it necessary to skip tournaments like Queens.
I am gutted to see him go through this again. It just breaks my heart.
Since Rafa has WON RG so many times! *
Judging by the logic on here in general, looks like someone chickened out citing an injury.
Judging others by your own standards, I see.
Fedfan MARCH 16, 2019 AT 7:37 PM,
Fed devotees’ fake story factory is constantly running at full speed.
It is truly a shame that there has to be one idiot to come on here and make the sickening suggestion that Rafa is faking because he does not want to play Fed!
It’s not enough that Rafa fans have to endure the pain of seeing him once again battle a knee injury. Only someone who is a hater or deaf, dumb and blind, would even presume to think that Rafa chickened out!
Just too bad.
No, but unfortunately Rafas body catching up with him , no surprise the way he plays . Its been predicted often enough, but the fact that he’s still playing at this level is amazing.
Rafa has patellar tendinitis. Not because of the way he plays. He’s just prone to it. Some people are. Darren Cahill, for example. Andy Roddick. He’s lucky in that there’s better treatment for it these days. Cahill retired at 25 because of it. It does not get better with age, although not playing tennis would certainly help. Rafa’s congenital foot problem may have made it worse, too, by affecting his balance due to the insoles he has to use to take the pressure off that bone. His foot problem WAS worsened by playing tennis and soccer as a kid, so you can blame him for that.
Shame we won’t get to see this match but it’s the right decision by Nadal. It was clear yesterday that there was a very low chance he would be able to play today.
Looking like Thiem will probably be Fed’s opponent. He’s beaten Roger twice (2-2 overall) but never on HC.