David Goffin will take a win over one of the Big 5 any way he can get it. The 26-year-old Belgian has been an elite player for a few years now, and he has pushed the top guys to the brink a few times, but before today he was just 2-21 against Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, and Stan Wawrinka.
Make that 3-21. In a battle of the walking wounded, Goffin, who has had his injured right knee taped for months, beat Nadal, whose own right knee injury became more obvious as the match progressed, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 6-4. By the second set, Nadal was flexing his knee, which had forced him to pull out of his last tournament, in Bercy. By the third set, he was limping. When it was over, he waved good-bye to the O2 crowd for good, and a few minutes later he put an end to his 2017 season by pulling out of the tournament.
“I had a great season, I’m not going to cry,” said Nadal of his 2017, in which he won two Grand Slam titles and became the oldest man, at 31, to claim the year-end No. 1 ranking.
Nadal said he decided midway through the match that he would probably have to pull the plug. But you wouldn’t have known that from the way he tried to work his way back in. With Goffin serving for the win at 5-3, Nadal broke. Serving at 4-5, Rafa saved one match point and held. Serving at 5-6, he saved three more match points with a brilliant series of go-for-broke winners. After dropping the first two points of the tiebreaker, he played his best tennis in a month to win it 7-4. In the third set, Nadal, despite struggling to move and falling behind two breaks, came back again and forced Goffin to serve it out at 5-4. This time Goffin was up to the task, and he closed it out with his 14th ace, on his fifth match point.