Rafa Books Final Semis Spot

No thanks to the tournament, Nadal took charge of his destiny today at the US Open in just 33 minutes. The Spaniard was locked in the dogfight with Fernando Gonzalez when rain suspended his match at 7-6 6-6(3-2) after 2 hours and 3 minutes of play on Thursday.

After being rained out all of yesterday, the tournament resumed play this afternoon. The question would be which player could come out immediately and resume his level of play without having chance to play his way into the match. This would be most important since the match would resume in the middle of the second-set tiebreak.

Unfortunately for Gonzalez, he came out rusty. His biggest weapon, his forehand let him down. Gonzalez missed three forehands in a row and immediately found himself 2-6 in the tiebreak. Nadal won set point when Gonzalez could not return his serve and was able to wrap up the second set in less than two minutes.

After losing the second set, the Chilean was visibly frustrated and inconsolable. He never got his head back into the match and basically melted down in the third set. Nadal, on the other hand, managed his points well by playing conservatively. He allowed Gonzalez to make all the errors that lead to him bageling the 29 year old and winning the match at 7-6(4) 7-6(2) 6-0.

Nadal secured the final spot in the semifinals and will meet Juan Martin del Potro tomorrow. Nadal is 4-2 over del Potro, but the Argentine has won their last two meetings. Sometimes the stats are useless when you are talking about grand slams.

In the last four years, Federer and Nadal have had the advantage and had a basic monopoly over the other players. Some players play well all year and then get to the slams and crumble. It will be interesting to see if del Potro is able to overturn the Spaniard’s big advantage. The same will be true for Novak Djokovic in his semifinal against Federer. He did it once at the Australian Open in 2008, but will he reassert himself and do it again? We will see tomorrow.

(Image: Emmanue Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)