Rafael Nadal and Botic van de Zandschulp will be going head-to-head for the second time in their careers and for the second time in less than a month when they meet again in round four at Wimbledon on Monday. They just faced each other during third-round action at the French Open, where Nadal cruised 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
The question is: will grass make any difference?
Probably not. Both guys are all-court players, so the surface should not have any significant impact. Nadal may be the King of Clay, but right now he is the king of everything. The 36-year-old Spaniard has won each of the first two Grand Slams in 2022 and is No. 1 in the race to Turin by almost 2,000 points. He has improved his season record to 33-3 and extended his slam winning streak to 17 with victories over Francisco Cerundolo, Ricardas Berankis, and Lorenzo Sonego. Nadal dropped sets to both Cerundolo and Berankis in mediocre performances but raised his level considerably to crush Sonego 6-1, 6-2, 6-4.
Van de Zandschulp has been great dating back to last summer–albeit not anywhere near Nadal’s level, of course. The 26-year-old Dutchman is up to a career-high of No. 25 in the world and this marks the second grass-court event of the summer in which he has won three matches (previously at Queen’s Club). Van de Zandschulp earned his spot in week two of Wimbledon by beating and Feliciano Lopez, Emil Ruusuvuori, and Richard Gasquet in mostly routine fashion.
“He’s a player that [has] been improving unbelievable the last year,” Nadal commented. “(It) was a good challenge in the French and I think he will be [again]. He’s a complete player with a lot of great [attributes], and I need to keep going the way that I played [against Sonego]–playing aggressive and playing with the right energy.
“He’s a tough opponent, but we are in fourth round. That’s the way that it should be.”
Van de Zandschulp does have a fair amount of firepower, but not enough to make him that prototypical player who would consistently give Nadal trouble. And given the way the second seed looked on Saturday, all signs point to this being one-way traffic.
Pick: Nadal in 3
WWW?
Rafa in 4
Bingo. Love VDZ – love Rafa more. It will take him 4.
Rafa in three.
Van de Zandschulp in 5
Just hope Rafa plays well and takes his chances. I would love for it to be a str8t set affair but Rafa and his 3rd set dips is to be expected. Vamos, Champ!
Amy…nny are u nervous ?
Bvz, fritz, maybe kyrgios .it won’t be easy at all
Sanju,
I am not as nervous as I was, mainly because of the way Rafa played on the last match. He looks much more like himself. I have never seen this Dutch guy play. But isee that he has moved up in the rankings.
Just to update you, Kyrgios and Nakashima both won a set and are in the third set. So we have to see if Kyrgios gets through. He just called for a MTO for some issue wuth his shoulder.
I usually get very nervous starting with the quarterfinals. But this tone it’s been more nerve wracking because Rafa has had to adjust to the grass.
Is it ever easy for Rafa?
Nny, you are forgetting Rafa played Zandschulp at RG.. ( unless I misunderstand you?) Zandschulp had huge problems dealing with the spin on Rafa’s ball.
Sanju, like nny I am much less nervous than I was before his last match because he played so well against Sonego.
If he maintains that form he will be in the final.
It’s on his racquet.
amy,
Oh my bad. I did forget.
Thanks for the reminder.
😀
Nny😀
Am hoping Zandschulp struggles with Rafa’s spin again.
I saw him play Matteo at Queens and he was unimpressive. More of the same please!
Yes! Also more of the same from Rafa!
ya, matches are going to be tricky from this round onwards
Just like two days ago against Sonego, I am not nervous at all. If Rafa cannot beat these opponents, he is not ready to deal with the likes of Fritz, Kyrgios and the Djoker.
And while rafafans have lamented Novak’s cup cake path into the final, and Rafa’s allegedly far more difficult assignment, it should be acknowledged that so far Rafa’s opponents have not been more difficult than Novak’s. Both of them might be tested more seriously in their respective quarterfinals, where Novak will encounter a very dialed-in and considerably improved Sinner, while Rafa – if he wins today – probably will have to deal with Taylor Fritz, who has beaten him recently in IW. But Rafa played with a broken rib. Therefore it’s hard to assess the relevance of that loss. I don’t doubt that Fritz might turn out to be the first truly dangerous opponent. But the same might be said about Novak’s opponent Sinner. The only big difference between Novak’s challenges and Rafa’s is the guy whom Rafa might have to play in the semis: Nick Kyrgios, who is probably the most dangerous player of the tournament – if he manages to stay focussed, which is not at all guaranteed. So, the main difference between Rafa’s and Novak’s path into the final is the quality of their potential opponent in the semis. It’s simply not true that Rafa’s job at Wimby’22 is so much more difficult than Novak’s. Initially Rafa’s draw looked indeed far more challenging, but that changed when Cilic and Berrettini dropped out.
I agree about Rafa’s draw, but it has opened up quite a bit. Initially he had Querrey in the second round, Cilic in the fourth round, Felix in the quarterfinals and Berrettini in the semis. At least now it seems more doable.
Rafa always says you have to expect a tough opponent as you go deeper into the tournament. Having to play Kyrgios would be the worst thing. He is extremely good on grass but he’s also very unstable and he dislikes Rafa. We saw what he is capable of in his last match.
At least he did have to play him in the early rounds. Rafa getting to the semis means he is playing well.
NNY, yes, Rafa’s initial draw looked horrible. But after all these great players dropped out or didn’t survive the first round, the situation became totally different.
This year has been so strange for many reasons. And Rafa had really very unlucky draws at all three slams. But only RG turned out to be really difficult – at least until the semis.
I agree with you that Kyrgios might be a bit less dangerous in the semis than in the earlier rounds. Rafa will have found his grass game by then and the surface conditions might be more to his liking. And it’s possible that Nick might run slightly out of steam. He was never known for his stamina. Has he ever been in a slam semi final? I don’t think so…
Personally I think that in the final Novak would prefer to play against Rafa instead of NK. Rafa has not beaten Novak on non-clay surfaces since 2013. But NK has beaten Novak in their two matches against each other.
He did not have to play him in the early rounds. *
Btw, Taylor Fritz hasn’t even dropped a set, yet! But while he played really well so far, this isn’t all that surprising if you look at his opponents. The mass exodus/absence of so many high ranked players like Medvedev, Zverev, Rublev, Cilic, Berrettini and a few others may have been far more consequential for the middle tier than for the top tier players. Rafa and Novak would have probably dealt with these absent top players, even if it might have been challenging. But for the slightly less accomplished players Wimby’22 is a huge chance for making a statement.
I haven’t been following Fritz. But it is interesting that the exodus of players has eased his path. He has the game for grass, but has not done anything at slams. I don’t put much stock in the result at IW where Rafa was badly hampered by the rib.
Ricky predicted that Fritz will beat Rafa in the quarterfinals. We will see. Many predictions turned out to be wrong 😉
He also predicted Sinner to beat Alcaraz which was a prediction we all rubbished!
However, as I remember he picked Novak to beat Rafa at RG and Alcaraz to beat Novak to win the title. A set of predictions which were way off.
This predicting lark is hardly scientific…!
Amy, I think that predictions are harmless fun. Unless young want to make money by betting of course. I am also not supersticious, and I don’t believe in jinxing – unless we look at Steve Tignor’s predictions. I have alway said jokingly that the Tignor curse is well documented and very powerful as far as his predictions for finals are concerned 😉 For a while he was always wrong, but he got a bit better lately, although I have not really looked closely for a while. I really don’t like tennis.com anymore. It used to be one of the best tennis websites for many years with a great world wide fan community at the comment sections. Now it is uninteresting and commercial.
It’s owned by Sinclair littlefoot.
They are very sinister; heavily involved with supporting Trump and autocracy. I don’t like going on that site now.
Tiggy is a good writer but his predictions are generally off. Out of the blue he picked Kerber to win this year. I really like Angie but I think that’s a pretty strange pick..
I don’t like that Rafa is constantly being served up now as the last match scheduled for blatantly commercial reasons. It means he ends up fighting the clock ie the 11 shut down and has to play with the roof on. I expect it to continue because he is their biggest commercial asset. It doesn’t help Rafa at all.
Garin wins in 5
Kyrgios locked in fifth ..
Meanwhile fritz in cruise mode
I wish they would stop serving up rafa as the last match. It potentially puts him under considerable pressure with the 11 deadline and the stupid roof.
He is their #1 commercial asset so I am sure it will continue.😠😠
Qf won’t happen that way..Novak scheduled first tomm n other match on court 1
Damn kyrgios broke in fifth so he will win. Damn bvz, fritz ,kyrgios is hell ..all big servers
There is no way I think garin will beat kyrgios ..
No, but NK may well beat himself! 🙂 And Garin will keep him out there.
Kyrios is nursing a slight shoulder injury. It’s only going to get worse bcoz Garin will really push him. How many five setters has Kyrios played thus far? Nick has fitness issues too. If he gets to meet Rafa that match may well not even live up to its billing! And on top of that, I KNOW Rafa will turn up for that match!!
Yeah. He is unfit with a history of back problems. ( Shoulder and back are connected).
It’s questionable how far he can go..
The commies were actually saying that they thought he shouldn’t be allowed to have numerous shoulder rubs and massages at the changeover. That his lack of conditioning was basically his own fault.
But Garin has zero firepower
Nick went 5 with a British wild card ranked around 200 or worse.
It’s not a given he wins with an injury.
I agree! It’s not like Nick won in straight sets. He had to battle this guy who is low ranked. Nick always has some physical thing going on because he doesn’t train to get into better condition.
I did not see him having to go five sets to beat Nakashima. If the next match is a long one that will not help him. Rafa is a whole other level than these guys.
Sanju, even if Garin has no fire power he can still give Nick problems bcoz he may want to run down everything which may well irritate Nick! Having shoulder problems at this stage of a tourney is just never a good thing! Rafa will exploit that by making play more balls………well that’s if they meet 😝😄
Monalisa, I agree! And Rafa has a rather nice record against Kyrgios lately.
The way I see it Rafa can aqcuit himself well in this year’s very strange Wimby edition – but the idea that he will actually win the whole thing was always a very long shot. If it will happen – great! But I think that his chances are much better at the USO. Therefore I really don’t fret right now. In this Session Rafa has already done much more than what seemed physically possible. Don’t forget that he was ready to retire a couple of weeks ago! And no one could have blamed him.
Scrappy stuff from Badosa. I reckon Halep win this in straights.
Oh, wow, poor Bardosa!!! I can’t believe the match is already done!!! 3 games?!! Halep s not going to let anyone take this trophy form her 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Anyway. Nick in his on court interview says he can’t wait to have some wine, we’ll I’m sure it might be a bottle!!! And then we’re surprised about his conditioning, lol
Rafa is going to reach the final. I think changes of a Rafa vs Nole final are quite high and it will be a close one.
With winner as ? 🙂
What makes u say this VR abt rafa reaching the final
Vamosrafa, I agree! I would not be surprised at all if Rafa reaches the final. As I said already, Rafa has a good record against Kyrgios. But beating the Djoker might be too much to ask…
Hi VR! Grateful for the encouraging words.
I think Rafa’s got it in him. And he doesn’t feel pressure the way Djoker does. Rafa’s never been a records seeker. He just wants to WIN, collect that trophy and shove it on the shelves at his beloved Academy. 🙂 He’ll be happy either way as long as he feels he gave it his best. The only loss that really chewed him up was Wimbly 07, where he felt he panicked and strayed from his game plan. At the ripe old age of 21, against arguably the greatest male Wimbledon player ever.
Anyone here??
Rafa serving well..
Movement looks good, too.
Glad you are here Cheryl!
Rafa has alread hit 5 aces. Pretty unusual…