Nadal comes through epic against Navone to reach Nordea Open semi-finals
Rafael Nadal defeated Mariano Navone 6-7 (2), 7-5, 7-5 in a four-hour marathon to reach the semi-finals, where he will meet qualifier Duje Ajdukovic
Rafael Nadal, Nordea Open, 2024 © Zuma / Panoramic
Rafael Nadal survived a mammoth encounter against Mariano Navone, eventually beating the fourth seed 6-7 (2), 7-5, 7-5 after four hours to reach the semi-finals of the Nordea Open in Bastad.
It is Nadal’s first semi-final of the season, and the first he has reached since Wimbledon 2022. But he was made to work incredibly hard to get there.
In a gripping quarter-final, the highly adept Navone, well-tuned to clay-court dynamics, put in an excellent performance as he pushed the Spaniard right to the last ball.
It was a chaotic contest from start to finish, with a flurry of five breaks in total across the opening six games. Indeed, out of 37 games played, there were a total of 18 breaks – whether a player would hold serve was as certain as the flip of a coin.
Nadal was playing with more aggression in the early stages of the match than he had been previously in the tournament, but the accuracy was not there to back up the proactive approach. Instead he found himself leaking too many unforced errors against an opponent with substantial clay-court pedigree.
The pair exchanged breaks across the opening two games, before Navone struck again in the third prior to holding serve for the first time in the match. The Argentine then broke a struggling Nadal for a third time in the fifth game to earn a 4-1 lead but was unable to hold serve for a second time as the Spaniard pounced to reduce the deficit.
After a series of holds as the match settled into a serving rhythm, Nadal began to find his range. As Navone served for the set at 5-4, the Spaniard upped the intensity, forcing his opponent into rushed decisions to break for parity.
From the resulting tiebreak, however, the unforced errors began to creep back into Nadal’s game, while the Argentine played flawlessly to clinch the opening set 7-2 in the breaker.
But Rafa came roaring back in the second set, surging into a double-break lead within the first three games, only for Navone to wipe out the lead to restore parity as Nadal’s level dipped once again.
At 5-5, however, the Spaniard struck for a sixth time in the match, breaking his opponent yet again before serving out the set.
After two-and-a-half hours, the pair were locked at one-set all and heading for a decider.
a see-saw decider mirrors theme of the match
Nadal again had to come back from a set down in the third, recovering from a 2-0 deficit to win the next five games in a row for a double-break, 5-2 lead.
Serving for the match, however, there was yet another twist in the tale, as Navone broke back before consolidating with a hold to force the Spaniard to try to serve it out for a second time at 5-4. In a contest of sharply shifting momentum, suddenly the Argentine was dominating once again. He broke Nadal for the eighth time to draw level at 5-5.
As he did in the middle stanza, however, Nadal regathered himself admirably to strike at the death – his tenth break in total – before finally serving out a truly epic, roller-coaster of a win after a minute short of four hours.
“I wasn’t focused during the whole time,” Nadal conceded after the match.
“I was up 5-2, so I lost for some moments the concentration. I was able to hold physically until the end. Let’s see how I am tomorrow. Today I’m alive and I’m in the semi-finals. So that’s super important.
“I can’t thank enough all the support here in Bastad.”
Nadal, the champion here in 2005 but appearing as a wildcard this year, will play Duje Ajdukovic in the last four.
Ajdukovic is writing his own remarkable story in Bastad this week, having come through qualifiers to reach his maiden semi-final at ATP level.
Nadal will go into that one as the heavy favourite, but he’ll be looking for a much quicker and more straightforward victory than today’s as he seeks to gain match practise without jeopardising his body, ahead of a tilt for more Olympic medals in Paris at the end of the month.
