WHAT HAPPENED: After his 4-hour, 23-minute, thrilling escape in the second round against Karen Khachanov, top seed Rafael Nadal was asked what impact a tense and grueling test like that match would have on his campaign to defend the US Open crown.
Nadal, who in that encounter had his right knee attended to and seemed to be moving a bit hesitantly at times, hedged his bets. The Spaniard said that a tough match is a good thing, “as long as the body holds up.”
On Sunday afternoon, Nadal came out without the tape that he’d applied to his knee in his second-round match, and the Mallorcan showed little evidence of any lingering health issues.
But Nadal had another tough, physical match, which looked to be routine for the first two sets but grew complicated as the afternoon wore on.
Against unseeded Nikoloz Basilashvili, a player whom Nadal had beaten 6-0, 6-1, 6-0 in their only other meeting, at the 2017 French Open, he had to summon his best tennis to turn back a late, blistering challenge from the Georgian. Nadal won, 6-3, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4, in three hours and 20 minutes.
In the third set, the match suddenly turned into a tight – and enormously entertaining – battle. A visibly tired but game Basilashvili belted two-fisted backhands, producing 22 winners to snatch the third set in a tiebreak and prolong the match.
“Two matches in a row, very tough ones,” said Nadal on court after the win.
“He was hitting the ball very strong. Seems like I was not in control of the point even when I was hitting good shots,” he added.
At 3-all in the fourth set, the Spaniard claimed a decisive break of serve with a wicked winner. Racing to his left deep behind the baseline, Nadal laced an outstretched forehand stab down the line. He punctuated the break of serve with a full-throttle “lawn mower” celebration and hung on for the win.
If he didn’t quite need the Houdini-like heroics of his previous match, Nadal was severely tested for the second time in a row as he moves on to the second week of the Open.
WHAT IT MEANS: The bearded Basilashvili – who recently reached a career-high ranking of 33 – succeeded in winning more games in just the first set than he had in his entire first match against Nadal.
Nadal saved his most aggressive play for big points – primarily break points. For the first two sets, Nadal probed Basilashvili by rolling his groundstrokes high and deep and alternating sliced backhands to counteract the 26-year-old Georgian’s easy power.
But Nadal was forced to up his intensity late in the encounter to match Basilashvili’s aggression.
Basilashvili put up much bigger numbers than Nadal, smacking 56 winners (versus 29 for Nadal) and just 19 unforced errors. But while the Georgian impressively spanked the ball off both wings, ultimately he was unable to penetrate the defenses of the defending champion for more than one set.
MATCH POINT: Nadal advances to the quarterfinals at the US Open for the eighth time. He will face Dominic Thiem of Austria, who upset last year’s finalist Kevin Anderson in straight sets. Nadal and Thiem have played 10 times, with Nadal winning seven of those, but they have never met on any surface other than Nadal’s beloved clay. Their most recent encounter was at this year’s French Open final, where Nadal won his 11th championship in Paris in straight sets.
