2019 Top Matches, No. 3: Nadal d. Medvedev, US Open final

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“I would love to be the one to have more, yes,” Rafael Nadal said after winning his fourth US Open and 19th Grand Slam title, in a throat-tightening five-setter over Daniil Medvedev at Flushing Meadows.

More of what, exactly? Rafa was referring, obviously, to major championships, and the race he’s currently in to finish his career with more of them than Roger Federer (who has 20) and Novak Djokovic (who has 16). While Nadal qualified his statement by saying that he doesn’t just play tennis to win Slams, this was the first time I’d heard him admit that he does think about, and care about, finishing first in the Goat race.

This was also the first time I’d seen a match where that race had an obvious effect on the course that a match took. As much as Nadal might have wanted to put the Slam chase out of his mind, how could he not think about it? Here was a chance to play for a major title without having to face either Djokovic or Federer—or Stan Wawrinka or Juan Martin del Potro or anyone else who has beaten him in a big event. Instead, it was only the gangly, 23-year-old Medvedev, a Slam-final rookie, who stood between Nadal and No. 19. Medvedev is a tremendous player, and may be a Hall-of-Famer himself someday, but Nadal would have kicked himself if he had let this chance slip.

And that’s probably why he almost did let it slip. Everything was under control from Nadal’s point of view for the first two and half sets. After starting out playing “too tactical,” as his coach, Carlos Moya, put it—i.e, trying to beat Medvedev at his own cerebral game—Nadal moved forward at the end of the first set and took advantage of Medvedev’s deep court position. Rafa would end up coming to net 66 times. By the time Nadal led by two sets and a break in the third, Medvedev said he had begun to prepare his runner-up speech in his head.

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Then, serving at 3-2, Nadal missed a smash and made two backhand errors. It was just a slight crack in the door, but Medvedev barreled through it. Suddenly he was the one winning the long rallies and finishing points at net—the Russian would go there 74 times on the night. For the next two sets, Medvedev, rather than Rafa, was the wall that wouldn’t crack, and the one who looked like he could play forever.

Medvedev saved two break points at 4-4 in the third, and broke for the set at 5-6. In the fourth set, with Nadal serving at 4-5, Medvedev came from 40-0 down to break again, with a backhand pass. Instead of a 19th major title, was this going to be a return to Rafa’s struggles of 2015 and 2016, when he lost so many matches that he seemed sure of winning?

“He’s freaking out a little bit,” John McEnroe said in the ESPN booth.

By the start of the fifth set, Nadal was bug-eyed and breathing hard, while Medvedev was still coolly intent. His expression, and seemingly his physical condition, hadn’t changed since the start of the match.

Early in the fifth, Medvedev twice reached break point. On the first, Nadal clipped the sideline with a backhand after a long rally. On the second, Nadal was given a time violation by chair umpire Ali Nili; it was his second of the match, which meant that he lost his first serve. But as so often happens in these cases, it was the penalized player who benefited. Annoyed, Nadal went on the attack, saved that break point, and held. Three games later, he broke Medvedev with a backhand winner, and broke again for 5-2.

“When you have break point against in the beginning of the fifth, losing the last two sets, you are in trouble,” Nadal said. “But I always try to avoid this thought.”

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Surely, Nadal wouldn’t lose from 5-2, two breaks up, in the fifth set. But he wasn’t just one game from winning the Open, he was one game from 19, and getting across both of those finish lines was never going to be easy. Nadal double faulted at 15-0, and double faulted again at break point, after having another first serve taken away—by now Rafa was in a race with Nili’s unforgiving serve clock on virtually every point. Serving at 3-5, Medvedev saved two match points, one with a backhand winner, the other with a gutsy-crazy second-serve winner.

Rafa had one more chance to serve it out at 5-4. When he shanked a forehand to go down break point, it looked as if his nerves had finally overtaken him. But as he has so many times in the past, Nadal answered adversity with aggression, and came up with three of his best shots of the night when he had to have them.

At 30-40, he won the point with a strong inside-out forehand. At deuce, he feathered a forehand drop shot just over the net and just out of Medvedev’s reach. And at match point, he fooled Medvedev, who guessed that he was going wide in the ad court with his first serve, by going down the T instead. Medvedev made it back to the center of the court, but couldn’t control his forehand return. Like everything else about this evening for Rafa, it was just enough.

“The way that the match became very dramatic at the end, that makes this day unforgettable, part of my history of this sport,” he said.

“This trophy means everything to me today. Personal satisfaction the way that I resisted all these tough moments is very high.”

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In many ways, the GOAT race really isn’t fair. Federer has said that as a kid he only ever dreamed of winning one Grand Slam; the idea of winning 20 would never enter any sane person’s head. Rafa echoed that thought after his Open win. “All the things that I achieved in my career are much more than what I ever thought and what I ever dream,” he said.

Now, after all the Big 3 have done, are we really going to tell them that winning 16 or 19 or 20 majors isn’t enough?

At the same time, each of them would like to finish first. And as much as they try to block it out, or downplay it, the pressure during their major finals must be intense—if they win six matches but not the seventh, history essentially says they’ve failed. When they make a major final, they basically aren’t allowed to lose. And maybe that’s why they don’t lose: Nadal’s US Open victory was the 12th straight Slam title for the Big 3, and their 55th overall.

But at the Open we also got to see the upside of the Slam chase. Rather than succumb to nerves and squander a golden opportunity, Nadal found a way past them—in his words, he “resisted,” and ended up with one of the most satisfying and hair-raising wins of his career. Going for No. 19 brought out the best in Rafa, and showed us why he may end up being the GOAT after all.