The grimace said it all. The game was up. Stan Wawrinka had three match points. Rafa had a bad back. The overwhelming favourite going into the match had fought as hard as he could with no serve, no legs and no hope for the best part of three sets but now he knew the time had come. Stan Wawrinka was about to be crowned as the Australian Open champion and Nadal was about to suffer yet another heartache at Melbourne Park. He had come to the final match playing well and moving better. His demolition of Roger Federer in the semifinal proved that he was reaching his peak at exactly the right time while the numbers were stacked in his favour: 12 matches played against Wawrinka, 12 matches won against Wawrinka and not a set dropped. And then he stepped out on court for the warm-up to discover that his back had gone into spasm. At first, the crowd was blissfully unaware of his problems and were marvelling at the aggression and focus of the Swiss underdog. Wawrinka was taking the fight to Nadal and he was winning almost every important battle. He served, he volleyed and he had Nadal on the run. This was not in the script. In the build-up to the final, all the talk had been of Nadal and his chase to equal Federer’s record of 17 major titles. A win on Sunday would have given the Spaniard 14 Grand Slam trophies, equalling Pete Sampras’s tally, and would have secured a double career Grand Slam. No one had done that in the Open Era; this was Rafa’s chance to rewrite history. This was supposed to be Rafa’s final to lose. So he lost. By the second set, he was in deep trouble. He went to serve and was in pain. He went to hit a forehand and pulled up short. He bent double to try and stretch out the rock-hard muscles that were holding him back, but it was no good. At 2-1 in the second set, he called for the trainer and headed off court for treatment. “In that moment I was too worried to think about what happened,” Nadal said. “The physio tried to relax a little bit the back. When that happen during a match is almost impossible. “I tried hard. Last thing that I wanted to do was retirement. I hate to do that, especially in a final. Same time, is tough to see yourself during the whole year you are working for a moment like this, and arrives the moment and you feel that you are not able to play at your best. “So was not an easy situation for me to be on court like this, but I tried hard until the end, trying to finish the match as good as I can for the crowd, for the opponent, for me. So thats what I did: tried everything until the last moment, but was impossible to win this way. Opponent is too good.” When he returned to a chorus of boos and whistles, he could barely move. The crowd had no idea just how bad Nadal’s back injury was – hence the boos – but a few minutes later, they realised the error of their ways. The former champion could only roll in his serve and hope that Wawrinka returned the ball somewhere within reach. Moving and hitting was out of the question; hitting winners was almost impossible. By now, the atmosphere around the stadium was grim. This was like witnessing an execution – we had to watch to make sure the deed was done but no one wanted to see it happen. Then, after 20 minutes or so, just long enough for the painkillers to kick in, Nadal began to serve a little harder, move a little better and tee off on a few winners. At the same time, Wawrinka was having a mental meltdown – this was supposed to be his moment; he had come with the game plan to beat the best player in the world and it had worked like a dream. Now he was faced with a wounded champion and he did not know what to do. As he dithered, Nadal won the third set but even if that made the scoreline respectable, the injured hero knew that he was fighting a losing battle.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 16:38:32 +0000
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