Endures bloodied nose; Sabalenka does a Houdini Act; Bopanna exits Open
NEW YORK: Rafael Nadal leans on the word 'suffereth' a lot. Archaic usage maybe, but it is a reliable gauge of his competitive spirit. In the milieu of how much he's willing to suffer in matches. 'I suffereth no?' It's not a question, it's a reading.
In the US Open late on Thursday, he didn't need words to sum up his situation - bruised and bloodied he was the picture of it. The 23-time major winner cracked his nose in a freak accident deep in the fourth set of his second-round encounter against Italian Fabio Fognini.
Nadal, who was struggling to string it together at the start of the match, trailing by a set, picked up his play and appeared to be surging ahead when he was stopped in his tracks. As he stretched for a wide backhand, his racquet bounced off the court and hit the bridge of his nose. The 36-year-old walked back to his courtside seat before lying down. A medical timeout was called as play cannot continue if a player is bleeding.
Nadal returned to the court a few minutes later with his nose taped to close out the 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 victory.
"It was just a strong hit. In the beginning I thought I broke the nose, it was a shock and it was very painful," Nadal said, adding that the strike had left him feeling dizzy. "I don't think I have broken my nose."
Fognini, now ranked 60 and with the craft to match his swagger, had worked his way past Nadal after the Spaniard led by two sets to love in the third-round of the US Open in 2015. So, despite the 13-4 advantage Nadal enjoyed in their head-to-head coming into Thursday's match, he knew what he was up against.
The second-round match between long-time rivals got off to a dramatic start. After closing out the opening set, the 35-year-old Italian led by a break on three occasions in the second before Nadal came into his own.
"I'm practising much, much better than what I am playing. That's a positive thing," Nadal said of his level at the start of the match. "I need to make that happen in matches. It's not easy, but I'm making a step forward. I think at the end of the match I played better than in the first round. That's an improvement."
Nadal will play Frenchman Richard Gasquet in the third round on Saturday. Gasquet has had 17 strikes against Nadal but is yet to beat him.
Earlier, Aryna Sabalenka staged the comeback of the tournament so far when she rallied from 2-6, 1-5 down against Estonia's Kaia Kanepi to score a 2-6, 7-6 (8), 6-4 win after saving two match points.
Meanwhile, it was a disappointing day for India's Rohan Bopanna, who bowed out of the men's and mixed doubles draws. Bopanna and Dutchman Matwe Middelkoop, the ninth seeds, went down 6-7 (2), 2-6 to the Italian combine of Lorenzo Sonego and Andrea Vavassori. Later in the mixed event, Bopanna and China's Zhaoxuan Yang, seeded six, fell 5-7, 5-7 to Canada's Gabriela Dabrowski and Max Purcell.
