They started on serve, and Nadal was serving like he meant business, keeping the points short.
In fact neither of them were giving anything away at all, although at 4-4, Nadal was given a time violation, and had a bit of a rant at Carlos Ramos. He went on to win that game, but the trainer was called to his chair (there only very briefly).
Del Potro held onto his serve to level things 5-5, and Nadal delivered a breathtaking hold after having to defend breakpoints.
Del Potro leveled again to take things for a TB, but at that point, Nadal took a medical time out and the trainer (who had been waiting in the wings) was straight out to examine his foot.
Del Potro was stood about for a moment incredulously before taking his seat and having a good old moan about it.
He was still obviously quite annoyed after the MTO when they started the TB as he was gesticulating to Carlos Ramos with his racquet as he walked to the back of the court.
Nadal came back from behind to take the TB after a Del Potro DF. He was really not best pleased, slamming his racquet into his bag in annoyance.
While the MTO was going on, predictably the crowd decided to amuse itself by starting a wave around the court – and got a couple of Royal participants!
The second set started with holds all round. Del Potro seemed to throw in some cute-play drops but that almost was the undoing of him, and we were starting to see some really good rallies now, with Del Potro moving a bit better and he seemed to have calmed down a bit.
In fact he took the initiative when Nadal seemed to have a bit of a lapse of intensity, and subsequently held to love to take the second set.
The third set started promisingly, the guys going with serve. Then (at 2-2) after an amazing rally between them, Del Potro slipped on the dusty area behind the baseline and went down on his hip, hard. And stayed down. Carlos Ramos was out of the chair and Rafa was up at the net, and the on-court trainer was out to him pretty quickly. He limped over to the chair, and the supervisor was on hand, and pretty soon he limped off, actually looking qite distressed for an off-court assessment and treatment. He came back onto court, and managed to play a couple of points before Rafa took that game and headed back to the chairs.
Coming out to serve at 2-3, Del Potro seemed to be moving ok and held his service game, as did Nadal, to love.
Things continued with serve, but Nadal was looking the stronger of the two, as it went to another TB. Nadal stayed ahead and took the third set.
At the start of the fourth, Del Potro was moving OK and again we were treated to some amazing rallies back and forth, with great shot variation from them both.
Nadal broke to lead 3-2 and consolidated that break, despite a spirited start against his serve by Del Potro. The light was beginning to fade quite a lot now and Del Potro was having some animated conversations at the change of ends.
Comfortable holds followed to put Nadal in the position of coming out at 5-4 to serve for the match, which he did. Del Potro got a massive ovation as he waited patiently for Nadal (man that boy does EVERYTHING in his own sweet time)… and I headed back.
Got a single ticket for the Men’s Quarters – will be seeing Fed/Tsonga and Murray/”Deliciano”…
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