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 No, I'm not talking about the best shot of the tournament, which may turn out to be the incredible stretch backhand Nadal flicked past Robin Soderling during their prolonged third-round contest.
I'm talking about the single most important shot of the Championships, which may turn out to be the forehand Rafael Nadal missed at match point in the third-set tiebreak against Soderling. It was close, too – close enough for Nadal to challenge the out call on Hawk-Eye, but unsuccessfully.
If he had made the shot, the match would have finished Monday, saving Nadal another two days of going on and off, on and off – getting more and more irritated all the time. And that would have meant he wouldn’t have had to come out and face nemesis Mikhail Youzhny the day after.
But maybe there's some poetic justice in it. Had Nadal had played a bit faster between points, he might have been able to finish earlier anyway. What’s more, Soderling wouldn’t have got annoyed by all the time being taken and wouldn’t have mimicked Nadal’s wedgie routine in what had to be the ugliest moment of an ugly match.
The incident happened at the beginning of the fifth set when Soderling went to get another racquet as Nadal was getting to ready to serve – Nadal became impatient, and we all know how Soderling responded.
The parody was ill-advised, the Swede admitted later, but he wasn’t too contrite. “Maybe I shouldn't have done it,” he said, but added: “It was more of a fun thing... it was at the start of the fifth set. Until that, I think I had to wait for him more than 200 times. Every point I had to wait for him. He had to wait for me one time.”
Judging by Nadal’s dark mutterings about divine retribution afterwards, it stung. He was fired up enough to break in the next game, but then the players were off the court again, leaving him to seethe overnight. (Not before he signed a few autographs on the way out, however – a thoughtful gesture.)
But the bad blood had to have taken an emotional toll, and Nadal was flat when he came out to face Youzhny less than 24 hours later. That meant he had to go five sets, and now it’s back on court tomorrow to play Tomas Berdych, who doesn’t exactly sound cowed about the match-up. The two have known each other since their junior days and Berdych is 3-2 against Nadal on tour, with both losses coming on clay.
“Gonna play with Rafa first time on the grass court,” said Berdych. “I think the grass can be an advantage for me, so we’ll see.”
And unlike Nadal, he doesn’t seem to bothered by the rain. “So far all my matches was when I was
scheduled on the court. It was just like second delay in these two weeks.”
If Nadal gets through and eventually ends up facing Roger Federer in the final, he'll have played every day this week while Federer came into Thursday having had five days off.
Nadal also had bad luck because of the tournament's decision not to play on middle sunday, and then not to schedule him first on for Tuesday, either of which might have allowed the match to be completed earlier. But as observed, his refusal to start the match on Saturday looks like it cost the All England Club about $2 million – another three or four minutes, and they wouldn’t have had to refund tickets because an hour of play would have been completed. Don’t expect any favors from now on, senor.
Just kidding, of course, but it just goes to show how star-crossed Nadal's Wimbledon campaign has been this year. Yet he’s still alive. Does it mean he’s destined to win or destined to lose? Either way, it’s proving to be a fascinating ride.
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