NEW YORK—What a difference converting a break point can make.
Rafael Nadal pushed Leonardo Mayer early and often on the Argentine’s serve in their third-round match on Saturday. But he couldn’t win the point that mattered most. Mayer saved break points in every way possible: with aces, with service winners, with forehand winners, with backhand winners. And as the match went on, Nadal lost them in every way possible: with wayward forehands, wayward backhands and, most of all, weak returns of serve.
Rafa has often suffered from the yips when trying to return second serves on break points, but this time the nerves spread, and he seemed to be virtually immobilized every time he earned another chance to break. Time after time, he came up with a brilliant shot—a lob, a pass, a great piece of defense—at deuce, only to freeze in his tracks on the next Mayer serve. By the time he reached double digits in break points, I was sure that the only way Rafa was going to break was on a Mayer double fault.
Instead, at 3-3 in the second set, facing his 14th break point, the Argentine finally made a mistake: He hit a hard first serve into Rafa’s forehand wheelhouse, fast enough that he didn’t have time to think and tighten up. Nadal rifled a return down the middle, and Mayer misfired on a forehand. The moment had finally arrived. Mayer was still ahead on the scoreboard, but everyone in the building felt like the match was Nadal’s.