Nadal feels heat
It is just as well that Rafael Nadal is in the habit of taking not merely one towel on court with him, but two. At times on an oppressively warm Centre Court, his second round joust with world No.77 Mikhail Kukushkin was too close for comfort in more than the meteorological sense. The Spaniard worked hard for his 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 victory, in a sweaty two hours and 23 minutes, to earn a berth in the third round for just the third time in the last seven years.
Before a ball was so much as struck, a throaty voice from the back of the stands bellowed: “Vamos, Rafa!” Possibly this was not so much encouragement as an entreaty to get on with it. Umpire Carlos Bernardes certainly felt the 17-time Grand Slam champion took too long to get play underway, issuing him with a time violation; and he delivered another after the changeover at the end of set two.
It turned out that Nadal had no idea he had received a time violation before the match began. “Before?” he queried in astonishment, at his press conference. “First news about that. I respect when I am slow, accept the warnings. I do my best to be quick. Sometimes I not good enough to be that quick. I need my time to think about what to do for the next point, that's all."
As for the second violation, he said: "I had to take the wristband, T-shirt, banana out, change everything. Between sets I needed that time to change all these stuff because was a very humid day, that's all. Yeah, I accept because, yeah, I was slow.”
Hard work
Meanwhile, the first set was such hard work that, by the end, Nadal might have been thinking he had already earned a nice sit down with a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. It kicked off with an uncomfortable 10-minute opening service game, in which he was obliged to fend off three break points in an immediate tactical battle. But he rebounded satisfyingly to break with a comprehensive dismantling of Kukushkin’s feisty attack, and at 3-0 the set looked his for the taking.
Instead, his play became ragged, and at 3-1 a crushing cross-court backhand from the 30-year-old Kazakh sealed the break back. Kukushkin celebrated with a love hold as winners positively rained from his racket.
Nonetheless, at 5-4 the No.2 seed took control. First he executed a balletic leap over the path of a Kukushkin backhand volley to allow the ball to travel out. But when Nadal punched the air a couple of points later, it was with irritation, not celebration, as he wasted his first set point, created by his opponent’s double fault. Not to worry. A Kukushkin power forehand crashed into the top of the net, and a very relieved Nadal had the set in the bag.
Four years ago here the Spaniard was taken to four sets by Kukushkin, and the Kazakh demonstrated his grass court abilities in the warm-up to Wimbledon by forensically slicing apart Kyle Edmund’s game on his way to the semi-finals at Eastboune. He was actually the first man from his nation to reach the last 16 of any major, in Australia in 2014; but he is not over fond of facing a left-hander across the net, as his 1-5 record against southpaws before this match demonstrated.
Make that six defeats to lefties now. Having snaffled the momentum, Nadal was not about to hand it back. After amassing six break points in the first set, Kukushkin had none at all in the second. Instead the Spaniard nosed ahead early on, and fended off all resistance.
Missed opportunities
Kukushkin had five opportunities for a 2-0 lead in the third. In a mighty six-deuce saga even longer than the opening game of the match, Nadal repelled them all, but two games later he was in trouble again, and this time he dumped a forehand just wide to give way. Yet Kukushkin, in part through a peculiar bounce on a crucial forehand, could not make the breach stick.
Even so, his appetite for the fight never wavered, and at 4-3 he galloped across so much ground to create an acutely angled winner that the crowd’s ovation might have been mistaken for thunder. It was his last hurrah, as the next game concluded with Nadal leaping into orbit in jubilation at breaking serve. Finally, Kukushkin could battle no more.
One more victory will guarantee Nadal retains his No.1 ranking, no matter what others may achieve in these Championships. And if that doesn’t merit an upgrade from a digestive biscuit to a slice of cake with Nadal’s post-match cup of tea, then it’s a very unfair world.
“He was very tough,” the three-time Wimbledon champion said as he left court. “He plays very well on grass, with the ball coming very low all the time. But I played much better in this match than in the first round, which was important for me.
"I went on court with the determination to play with the right intensity all the time. I made a mistake in the third set, but played a great game to come back. Straight sets wins are important but I always give my best. Sometimes it’s three sets, sometimes best of five. The important thing is to be through.”
