Rafael Nadal has not been seriously tested through three U.S. Open matches and he will hope to keep it that way with Lucas Pouille on the other side of the net on Sunday. Gael Monfils and Marcos Baghdatis are also aiming for a place in the quarterfinals.
(4) Rafael Nadal vs. (24) Lucas Pouille
Nadal and Pouille will be going head-to-head for the second time in their careers when they clash in the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Sunday. Their only previous meeting came last spring on the clay courts of Monte-Carlo, where Nadal cruised 6-2, 6-1. A hard court will obviously give Pouille a better chance, but the Spaniard is certainly no slouch on this surface. Nadal is a two-time champion of this tournament, he is coming off a fourth-place performance at the Rio Olympics, and he has not dropped a set through three matches in Flushing Meadows. The world No. 5 blitzed Denis Istomin 6-1, 6-4, 6-2, cruised past Andreas Seppi 6-0, 7-5, 6-1, and made similar 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 work of Andrey Kuznetsov on Friday night.
Pouille punched a ticket to the last 16 of a second straight major (he went all the way to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon) in dramatic fashion. After taking care of Mikhail Kukushkin in four sets, the 25th-ranked Frenchman overcame Marco Chiudinelli 4-6, 3-6, 7-6(6), 6-2, 6-0 and outlasted Roberto Bautista Agut 3-6, 7-5, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1. Prior to Roland Garros this spring, Pouille owned just a single main-draw win at a Grand Slam; he has since picked up eight such victories. The 22-year-old will be unafraid of the big stage, but Nadal is in stellar hard-court form this summer and should have way too much game for an opponent coming off consecutive five-setters.
Pick: Nadal in 3 losing 11-14 games
[polldaddy poll=9512078]
(10) Gael Monfils vs. Marcos Baghdatis
Monfils and Baghdatis went more than nine years without facing each other. Now the two veterans are set to square off for the second time in a three-week span. At last month’s Cincinnati Masters, Monfils took a modest 2-1 lead in the head-to-head series by rolling over the Cypriot 7-5, 6-0. Interestingly, their first-ever showdown also came in Cincinnati–way back in 2006 when Baghdatis prevailed 7-6(8), 2-6, 6-1. They also met at the 2007 Australian Open, where Monfils got the job done 7-6(5), 6-2, 2-6, 6-0.
A second Grand Slam encounter between them was not expected given that Baghdatis found himself in the same section of the draw as a red-hot Milos Raonic. But Ryan Harrison ousted a hobbled Raonic in four sets and Baghdatis promptly took care of Harrison 6-3, 7-6(4), 1-6, 6-1 on Friday. The world No. 44 preceded that victory by beating Facundo Bagnis and Benoit Paire in mostly routine fashion. Monfils has not dropped a single set in wins over Gilles Muller, Jan Satral, and Nicolas Almagro. The Frenchman is an awesome 38-11 for the season and currently in position to qualify for the World Tour Finals. Nothing suggests Baghdatis, who is in the last 16 of a slam for the first time since 2009, will be the one to slow Monfils down.
Pick: Monfils in 3
[polldaddy poll=9512079]
i was working yesterday so didn’t see any of the match. so rafa lost after being up a break in the fifth and having a sitter at 6-6? wow that must have been really rough to watch and commies to those who did. i was so tired after finishing working yesterday night i just went to bed.
but rafa should have won that match if he was up a break in the fifth and had pulled it back. his serve is inexcusably bad and i really don’t know why they can’t use a serve coach again.
meanwhile kudos to hawks who called this one exactly right.
i was wrong to say pouille wouldnt win 3 back to back five setters. but rafa let him do it judging from your comments.
@ amy 10:16 am,
thank you for asking…I will be fine. I have loads of work so I am forced to not think about this loss any more 🙂
Yeah, it was tough match to watch…lucky you missed it…
I am learning to be more realistic about Rafa’s future results…it is a painful exercise but I will get to it eventually 🙂
I really appreciate all of you here with your diverse but valuable opinions and your great tennis knowledge! It makes it so much easier to accept these ugly defeats…
life goes on…
oh that’s good to know natashao. i was worried about you!! work is immensely useful for keeping the demons at bay. so glad i had to work late and missed the horror-show. i also have a lot of work this week and i’m glad of it.
i don’t want to be preachy but i do think it is a good idea not to invest to much in rafa’s matches in slams now. i was very nervous about this match and all his early round matches and so it wasn’t so bad for me when he lost as i was kind of expecting it.
take good care natashao!!!
Totally understand what Natashao, NNY and luckystar and all other rafa fans who were watching felt. My mood got so bad and I was feeling so bad for Rafa. I was pissed too but more sad.
Rafa’s warrior spirit is intact and he still loves the game a lot. He said in 2015 he was not enjoying his time on court but now when he is competing he is loving his time.
It is very tough to put into perspective that 6-6 loss. A wrist injury can’t take your instincts away which you’ve built over a career spanning 15 years . I agree with Natashao that it was a shot he would have hit in his sleep 2 years ago.
Rafa has the warrior spirit but not enough confidence to stay in the lead in the final moments. The amount of doubt just marginally overcomes his self-belief in key moments. He won a similar match against Zverev in IW but lost this one. He should never have gotten in that position.
However, Lucas.P was playing incredibly well. Rafa’s net game was the most developed and well-rounded I’ve ever seen yesterday. May be that was a lesson for him to integrate it into his game more frequently.
The forehand will get better with time but the only thing that can overcome these doubts is consistently reaching later stages of masters 1000 and slams.
I was so looking forward to Rafa-Monf and then Rafa-Djo probably.
No, we were not wrong to expect that because Rafa played at a very high level in Rio.
Thanks to the fellow Rafa fans here who make it easier to take these losses.
I don’t think there ever will be coaching change. I think they could get help to fix ONLY the serve? The rest they can handle I guess and not much can be gained at this stage, at least from a technical standpoint.
vr,
I am glad to hear your thoughts. It really helps to come here and just talk it out after yet another tough loss for Rafa.
I don’t think my expectations were too high, considering how Rafa played at Rio. Given the draw, I think it was reasonable to think he could at least make the quarterfinals and maybe even the semis.
I knew that Rafa’s lack of sleep match play could be a problem. The inability to go deep in slams can chip away at a player’s confidence. I think this was part of the problem in this match. I also think that Rafa’s inability to hold his serve when he gets the crucial break late in a match, is a real problem. It’s not as though he was playing Novak with his great ROS. He needs to be able to keep the advantage and not let his opponent back in the match.
It was so hard to watch all of the opportunities that Rafa has to win the match, even after he was broken back.
This one took a lot out of me. I wanted Rafa to salvage something from this year and get a decent result that he could use to build on for next year.
Only Marc Lopez stopped Rafa from leaving Rio medal-less. There was no reason for expectations after Rio in singles.
No it was more like rafa stopped Marc from leaving Rio without a medal.
So according to you vr, even though Rafa is coming back from injury, he can still hit his forehand the same way? This despite the evidence of our eyes that the lethal forehand has been missing for quite sometime?
In fact Rafa himself has said he has to unlearn and relearn his forehand. I think Benny mentioned it and now augusta has also posted something in this regard.
I am confident that if his wrist holds up, he will have his unconscious lethal forehand soon, if not in the fall season, at least at AO.
@Mary, no, he is not hitting his forehand the same way. I have been writing long posts about his forehand since Rio and about the limitations since his first round here.
I was referring to the forehand miss at 6-6… it was such an easy forehand for him thet he can hit it even with a handcuff on his wrist! I don’t know if it was just bad luck or tension getting the better of him somehow.
We are not talking about his forehand DTL or getting good length on running CC forehands for instance. All the technical details regarding correcting motions and movements of the wrist are related to the performance of his forehands in the course of sets and matches.
Not sure if you’ve seen clips of Rafa practicing. he probably takes the cover off the ball in putting away mid-court or 3 qtr balls away for winners in practice drills! The wrist is no limitation AT ALL to hitting those.
It is the overall confidence and hitting forehands when rushed (with minimal time to adjust) that those adjustments affect him.
Thing is, I will not and I can’t stop hoping rafa wins more slams. To me he still has the game to do it o at FO and even at a non-clay slam. I cannot predict about his confidence issues and all but he is strong, self-aware and determined to find a solution.
Two things that hurt me the most from a technical standpoint in his game:
1. His slice has barely shown any progression in all these years!!! he uses it so often but they are below-par. Del potro can often hit better slices than him which is a shame.
2. His second serve is not easy to attack but he has not been able to develop a big kick serve despite focusing on improving his second serve for so many years.
Roig was a solid doubles player and I believe Rafa’s improved net game over the years is partly attributable to Roig’s tutelage.
I have a lot to say about Rafa’s serve in the ad court but I will save it for later and get back to work for now.
sorry you had to go through the torture of that loss vr. as you know i missed as i was working late.
we talked before about the downside of rafa’s new serve position. it means that the receiver mostly knows where the serve is going. the swinger worked against delpo for a while but because he knew where it was going after a while he just started bashing them back. i really don’t understand why they can’t use a proper serve coach. the pressure on his serve puts such a huge strain on the rest of his game.
i read juan jose vallejo’s twitter earlier – he said that rafa was returning pretty badly. this problem about the first-strike tennis on serve and return has bedevilled him for 2 years now.
Rafa started showing worstened anxiety as the redefined time violation rule became more rigorously enforced.
It eventually affected all aspects of his game.
The new rule change effected it’s designed purpose. To slow and ideally protect Feds slam count record.
Excuses and more excuses. Nole will be breaking that record soon btw.
Alyssa, why did Nole punk out at Wimby and Olympics?
Delpo was fantastic in Rio. Vamos to him. As for Wimbledon apparently he had problem with the wife or something. Certainly had nothing to do with Sam.
Alyssa Nicolas (AT 4:20 PM),
You must have read the British tabloid(s).
Excuses and more excuses Alyssa.
Don’t you? Or do you.
You asked no? There must be some reasons. I was thrilled for Delpo btw. Hope he wins the Open this year.
Just goes to show excuses are everywhere.
I’d love to see Delpo win but Murray is likely to stop him should he make it that far.
This I agree with hawkeye, that of time violation rule affecting Rafa. He seemed rushed when serving, netting many of his serves.
true…
Rafa had a very good slice during 2010; he used it effectively during Wimbledon and USO that year. I particularly loved his BH slice DTL which he employed in place of a proper BHDTL shot which he didnt have a good one at that time.
I do feel his BH slice had deteriorated perhaps not helped by the injuries to his wrists.
the violation rule affected a 14 GSs winner? you must be kidding.
Do you even watch tennis?