Doing What He Does Best

Rafael Nadal’s 6-7 (8), 6-0, 7-5 win over Alexander Zverev at Indian Wells on Wednesday may not go down as the best match of 2016; fourth-rounders at Masters tournaments never do. But it is hard to imagine that we’ll see a more vividly archetypal event, in tennis or any other game, all year. This was sports that was made for the big screen, yet played on a painfully, thrillingly human scale.

On one side of the net there was the young upstart, in the long, lanky, floppy-haired form of the 18-year-old Zverev. On the other side there was the aging champion, in the familiarly muscular and pertinacious form of the 29-year-old Nadal. Their matchup promised an ideal changing-of-the-guard story for men’s tennis; from first act to last, from spectacular winners to even more spectacular blunders, it delivered in a way that no screenwriter could have bettered.

Zverev began, to borrow another show business analogy, by showing us that he’s ready for Broadway. He has visibly improved from one week to the next in 2016, but the conventional wisdom still says that teenage Grand Slam champions are a thing of the past, that the game has become too physical for them. Zverev may not win a major in the next two years, but after his victories this week over Grigor Dimitrov and Gilles Simon, and his near-victory against Nadal, we know he can play with anyone. Watching him stand toe to toe with Rafa and belt winners past him on Thursday was like seeing future turn to present.

If Zverev has yet to fill out his 6’6" frame, he has begun to fill out his imposingly versatile game. He can play the servebot; he has the 135-m.p.h. heater when needed, and it eventually won him the first set. But he can also patrol the baseline. Like so many other tall players with two-handed backhands, Zverev presented an almost unsolvable problem for Nadal. The topspin that pushes smaller opponents back instead landed smack in Zverev’s strike zone. His two-hander is so good it’s as if he’s playing with two forehands.

“He’s an amazing player,” Nadal said of Zverev before the match. “He has all the shots. Very good physical performance. Tall, good serve, first and second. Great shots from the baseline, forehand and backhand.

“He has everything to become [a] big star.”

(For the record, Nadal said something similar after playing Kei Nishikori for the first time, in 2008, but declined to give Nick Kyrgios—after losing to him at Wimbledon in 2014—the full nod of future-star approval.)

Zverev also showed a new emotional resilience on Wednesday. On his last trip to the States, in the summer of 2015, he was a meltdown waiting to happen, a diva in the making; I wrote that he “looked like Borg, acted like McEnroe.” Against Nadal, Zverev was briefly rattled by an on-court presence, Spidercam, that may have been new to him, but he shook it off quickly. And after traipsing through a bagel second set in which he won just nine points, Zverev bounced right back with his best stuff in the third.

Emotional resilience has never been a problem for Nadal, but the aging champion also had something—more than one thing, really—to prove on Wednesday. Over the last two years, he has taken his lumps, as aging champions tend to do, against other youthful upstarts: Kyrgios, Borna Coric and Dominic Thiem had all recorded wins over him. At the same time, Nadal had lost his most important mental edge: Instead of being the guy who found a way to win the crucial points, he had become the guy who found a way to lose them.

That Nadal was still very much in evidence against Zverev. He fought, he scrapped, he Vamosed, he hit with conviction, and for the most part he played well; 90 percent of the time you might have thought you were watching prime-years Rafa. Yet just when the old forehand, and the old strut, seemed to be back for good, Nadal inexplicably missed again.

At 7-7 in the first-set tiebreaker, Nadal made a turn-back-the-clock get deep in his forehand corner, then wheeled around on another crosscourt forehand that left Zverev spinning his wheels. Now, surely, the legend would vanquish the upstart, right? Not so fast; after reverting to his old self, Rafa reverted to his new once again. Presented with a putaway forehand on set point, he hesitated and sent it wide. In the third set, presented with a putaway backhand at break point, he sent that wide as well. Nadal was, again, winning everything but the points he needed. Fans who had watched him lose leads to Fabio Fognini at the U.S. Open last year, and Fernando Verdasco and Thiem this year, must have suspected that it wouldn’t end well.

But this story came with a twist. Just when the new generation looked ready to usher out the old, it was youth that hesitated. Serving at 5-3 in the third, Zverev was in total control; at match point, he maneuvered into position for the easiest of sitter volleys. And then he missed it. Somehow. He didn’t take the last little step, and ended up arming the ball into the net. Zverev looked straight down, all expression drained from his face; he never recovered from the self-inflicted blow. Over the last four games, he looked dazed and traumatized, and missed nearly everything. After playing like a man all afternoon, Zverev couldn’t hide his boyishly crushed face as he shook Rafa’s hand.

“I missed probably the easiest shot I had the whole match,” Zverev said. "It was a great match," Zverev said. "Rafa did what he does best; he was fighting. He’s known for that.”

For many fans, late-period Rafa, with all of its ups and downs, with all of its previously unthinkable fragility, is difficult to watch. But there’s a compelling drama to it as well. Every match, every important point, is a struggle now. In his prime, we knew him as one of the great winners in sports. But as Zverev says, we really knew him first and foremost as a fighter, against both his opponents and his doubts. Rafa is still doing what he does best.