Nadal

Rafael Nadal's Grand Slam story served up another dramatic chapter on Wednesday at Wimbledon, where the Spaniard held off a high-powered performance from ...

The match remained in the balance throughout an engrossing final set, but it was Nadal who raised his game under the pressure of the deciding-set tie-break. I need to be at 100% to keep having chances and that’s what I am going to try to do.” His next assignment in London is a semi-final with Nick Kyrgios, after the Australian was a 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(5) winner in his quarter-final matchup against Cristian Garin.

Nadal moves on to the semifinals where he'll face Nick Kyrgios.

On a date 14 years after his renowned final with Roger Federer here, a date he said he never imagined seeing way back then at age 22, he played his first deciding 10-point super-tiebreaker, designated for fifth sets nowadays. He played it beautifully, snaring a quick 5-0 lead as all his experience kicked in against a player in his first Grand Slam quarterfinal. But he found his way through an opponent whose big year has brought him a world ranking of No. 14, if an opponent who was fantastic but not quite airtight enough.

Rafael Nadal prevailed over the American Taylor Fritz in a fluctuating five-set quarter-final at Wimbledon to set up a semi-final against Nick Kyrgios.

Having squandered a break point that would have set him up, Nadal served to stay in the championships after nearly three hours of fretful struggle at 4-5, sealing it with his fourth ace of the match. But he threw it in the bin on his own serve, Fritz held and Nadal matched him, landing them up in the 10-point tie-break after 4hr 8min. Nadal broke early in the fourth set and held to lead 4-2, but overcooked a forehand to hand back the advantage at 4-4. Those ambitions took a hit in the eighth game, when a double fault put him 3-5 down, and Fritz punished him with two more aces to take the set. He is a win against Nick Kyrgios away from the final – possibly for a 60th time against Novak Djokovic – and the chance to win his third grand slam title on the spin. Taylor Fritz, 6ft 5in of towering American self-belief, did his best to bury a wounded legend here on Wednesday, but the 36-year-old Rafael Nadal would not stay down – against the advice of his worried father – and prevailed over five fluctuating sets to reach his eighth Wimbledon semi-final.

Nadal now stands two match wins from his third Wimbledon title and his 23rd major championship. His chief rivals Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer are tied at 20 ...

Up 4-3, he left the court to see the trainer and presumably get painkillers of some sort. He closed it out on his serve with a forehand winner and then met Fritz at the net. In the second set, Nadal showed signs of dealing with a lower abdominal injury. “First thing, I hope to be ready to play it, that’s the first thing,” Nadal said. Yeah, for a lot of moments I was thinking maybe I will not be able to finish the match but the court, the energy is something else. Nadal has won 19 straight major matches this year after winning the Australian and French Opens in the same calendar year for the first time in his career.

Nadal struggled with an apparent abdominal injury in his quarterfinal match against Fritz, a rising American star who pushed Nadal to five sets.

He has been wearing a patch on his lower abdomen during the tournament that appeared to be an anti-inflammatory patch. Nadal played with what turned out to be a stress fracture in one of his ribs, which limited his ability to serve and strike his groundstrokes at full force. But as the match extended past four hours, he regained control and finished off the victory with a classic forehand winner from inside the baseline, complete with his bolo-whip finish behind his left ear. “I hope to be ready to play it; that’s the first thing,” Nadal said in his on-court interview. “For a lot of moments, I was thinking maybe I will not be able to finish the match,” he said, speaking to the Centre Court crowd. But for all his power and hustle, he could not hold his two-set-to-one lead and quickly lost command of the decisive tiebreaker, falling behind, 0-5, as Nadal summoned the shotmaking that has made him a 22-time Grand Slam singles champion.

LONDON : Rafa Nadal provided no assurance that he would be able to turn up for his Wimbledon semi-final on Friday against Australian Nick Kyrgios after the ...

Without a doubt, today was the worst day, has been an important increase of pain and limitation," he said. "I just wanted to give myself a chance. Advertisement

An injured Rafael Nadal somehow managed to continue his quest to secure a historic Calendar Slam in 2022 after he roared back to beat Taylor Fritz.

It was due reward for a set in which Fritz played superbly well, especially given he was dealing with an injured opponent - never easy - and the pressure of a possible first Grand Slam semi-final. Nadal came steaming out of the blocks to take a 5-0 lead, but once again Fritz recovered to 6-3. "I honestly enjoy a lot playing these kind of matches, in front of you guys, I can’t thank you enough. Nadal said: “The body in general is fine. You'd never have said that in the remainder of the set Nadal would win just one more game, but that was what happened as Fritz wrestled his way back into the contest, breaking back in the sixth game, and then again in the eighth to romp away with it, 6-3. He managed to return to the court after leaving to receive treatment in the locker room, but he was not able to move freely and it appeared to be only a matter of time until the inevitable handshake at the net.

Rafael Nadal's team was understandably concerned when the Spaniard had treatment on an abdominal issue in his quarter-final win against Taylor Fritz at ...

I’m proud of the fighting spirit and the way that I managed to be competitive under those conditions.” “I just wanted to give myself a chance. I had these feelings for a couple of days. “For me it was tough to retire in the middle of the match. It is the second time in the space of four months that Nadal was facing Fritz carrying an injury. “They told me I needed to retire from the match,” said Nadal in his post-match press conference after his dramatic 3-6, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(10-4) win.