A Sweet 16 like no other: Down 5-2, Rafael Nadal rallies to deny Sebastian Korda in Indian Wells decisive tiebreaker

INTERVIEW: Rafa stops by the TC Desk

If you’re a Rafael Nadal fan, you probably had your rationalizations ready when he fell behind 2-5 in the third set to Sebastian Korda in Indian Wells on Saturday.

“Well, he’s still had an amazing start to the season.”

“He needs to concentrate on clay anyway.”

“We don’t need him to hurt his foot again before Paris.”

“Now he can just play golf.”

All of those reactions would have been reasonable. With an Australian Open title and a perfect record, Nadal has indeed had a better start to the year than even he would have dared to dream. And with his 36th birthday coming up, and Novak Djokovic coming back, winning another title at Roland Garros is the priority.

When Nadal double faulted twice to go down two breaks in the third set, a few of those thoughts may have flitted through his own mind. Korda, after all, was looking close-to-unstoppable. For most of the last two sets, he had stormed forward, taken every ball on the rise that he could, clipped one line after another, and put Nadal in full scramble mode. Korda knew he had to red line to win this match, and he was one service game from pulling it off.

But Rafa wasn’t ready to get in the golf cart quite yet. It wasn’t that he thought he was going to come back and win; he just knew that throwing in the towel is never an option for him.

“The only thing that I can tell you is, if the people believe that I am a believer all the time that I’m going to come back, not true,” Nadal said. “I am not this. I don’t have this amazing self-confidence that even if I am 5-2, ‘OK, I going to come back.’ No.”

“In my mind is, ‘OK, is almost impossible. I don’t want to give up. I going to keep trying.’ Let’s try to let him win, not help him to win. Just try to keep going and to put the things a little bit more difficult to the opponent.”

Up to that point, Nadal had tried to stand toe-to-toe with Korda from the baseline. It hadn’t worked. He couldn’t match his younger opponent’s flat, penetrating pace, and he struggled to get the ball deep enough to push him back, or high enough to take it out of his strike zone. Nadal was playing, as he said later, his “worst match of the year.” Rather than thinking about making a comeback, he started with the more modest goal of simply trying to play better.

“Even if I think I’m going to lose the match, my mindset before returning that 5-2 game is, ‘OK, I am playing bad, I had two breaks, but even if I’m going to lose, I’m going to try to finish the match having some better feelings.”

Nadal relaxed and found some rhythm, while Korda tightened up and lost his. Nadal broke and held for 4-5, and then he did start to believe. Instead of trying to slug with his opponent, he put some air under the ball, lofted it higher, and forced Korda to swing through his nerves. He couldn’t do it. The shots that the American had been drilling into the corners earlier started sailing out or into the net. Korda had walked the red line for most of two sets, but like so many others before him, he fell off just before the finish line.

“I played a little bit better. He had some mistakes,” Nadal said. “With one break, as I say, if you are able to hit a couple of good balls, the opponent gets a little bit nervous, something that happens every single week on the tour.”

Nadal played more than “a little better” at 4-5. In that game, he hit a winning backhand pass down the line, another one crosscourt, and a perfectly measured backhand lob to reach break point. In the deciding tiebreaker, he wasn’t as spectacular, but he was as solid as you would expect. He hit two service winners, a forehand winner, and never trailed.

Nadal’s 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (3) win, and the ecstatic reaction of the packed stadium, felt like the true return of the BNP Paribas Open after two years away. If he had lost, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world for him or his supporters, and he would still be 15-1 on the year. But Rafa wasn’t going to give in and just let that happen, and the fans in Indian Wells sounded happy that he didn’t.