There was this point in the second set between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, as much of a point as Arthur Ashe Stadium could ever see between two tennis players like this, 54 shots between them, the place finally exploding when Djokovic won a game that felt like some prize fight that had gone the distance. Like he had just won the championship of these few moments at the United States Open.
It was 4-2 for him with the break of serve. And even though Nadal would break back, because that is what Nadal does — you can put him down for a point or a game or a set, but try doing it for a whole match — Djokovic was going to win this set and even the finals of the Open at one set all.
Jimmy Connors was sitting behind the court, Connors who won the Open five times, won it on three different surfaces, owned the modern Open in Queens more than any player ever has, and now he said, “You think Novak wants to play 54-shot rallies all night?”
Then Connors, who understands Nadal because he once played lefthanded hardball tennis as hard as Nadal does now, pointed at Nadal and said, “Because he does.”
Connors smiled now, at this kind of action at the Open, this kind of match, two players going at each other like this, and said, “Because I know exactly what Rafa is thinking: I’ve got no place I’ve got to be.”
Djokovic seemed to have changed the night at Ashe at the end of the second set and into the third, seemed to have gotten more patient, seemed to make Nadal the one more likely to give in early on the long grueling rallies, give Djokovic a short ball before he got one. There was a stretch when he broke Nadal’s serve three straight times, even after Nadal had played as well over the first dozen games of the match as he could ever play in his life.
Maybe he had taken all of Nadal’s best shots, in all ways, was going to beat him in another U.S. Open, the way he did in 2011; maybe he had remembered the amazing time in his own tennis life when he had beaten the great Nadal seven straight times when they met in finals, when he got him at Wimbledon and the Open and at the Australian Open and passed Nadal and Roger Federer and became the No. 1 men’s player in this remarkable golden age of men’s tennis.
But then Nadal, trying to get to his 13th major in ’13, made his stand. Showed you that somehow at the age of 27, in this time in his career when he had to take seven months off because of his knees — and in a year when he lost at the first round of Wimbledon not so long after winning the French Open again — he really is playing tennis better than he ever has.
Playing in a way that makes you think that he thinks he can still walk away from his game, from Federer and Djokovic and Andy Murray, and say he won more majors than Federer (it would be 18) and that he is the greatest tennis player of all time. Or maybe he and Federer will retire with 17 apiece the way Chris Evert and Martina Navratlova retired with 18 apiece.
He broke back in the third. Even after that, at 4-all — a set all at the Open and everybody even in the third — Nadal fell hard and awkwardly at the baseline and fell into 0-40. Here was the chance for Djokovic to get a break and serve for a two sets to one lead.
Take back the night again from the great Rafa Nadal.
“You know what Nadal does?” Connors said. “He makes even guys like Djokovic think that they have to be better than they are.”
Nadal got out of the first break point with one more forehand winner that must have sounded to Djokovic like a train whistle. He got out of the third one with an ace, reminding you what kind of speed and ground game Nadal has, he gets so few aces now, so few cheap points off his own serve. He got to deuce. Djokovic, who doesn’t quit either, got him back to deuce again. Finally, though, Nadal was at the net and trying to hit a smash out of the place and out to the statue of Arthur Ashe in the plaza. It was 5-4 for him and then the set was his in the next game with another forehand.
Now there was the idea in Ashe that maybe this wasn’t one of those Open finals that was supposed to go five sets. Maybe Novak Djokovic was just ready to go. On this night when he and Nadal weren’t just playing for the Open but for Player of the Year.
“Probably nobody brings my game to the limit like Novak,” Nadal said when it was over, when he had won the last set 6-1, and the title.
We talk all the time about Federer, and his rivalry with Nadal, and we call Federer the greatest of all time because of his 17 majors. We call him that even though commentator Mary Carillo has always wanted to know, because Nadal has won 21 of the 31 matches they have played, how Federer can be the greatest of all time if there’s a guy he can’t beat in his own time.
But Nadal and Djokovic have now played 37 times and Nadal has won 22 of those, including this match on Monday night. He has come back from injury again. He is still 27, and still playing every point as if it is match point, making you think he will chase even the balls he cannot reach — or cannot hit for winners — until they stop rolling.
You think that maybe he gets hurt again, maybe he doesn’t win more majors than Federer. But then you look at his record against Federer and his record against Djokovic, you look at him on Monday night at Arthur Ashe, and you wonder if his best tennis is the best there has ever been.
