Phew ...

The evil twin turned up today, didn't he?

I started off by watching Livescores and then sneakily watched the match via my phone today at work. So my perspective can be blurred by that but at one point I had that awful, nauseous feeling in my tummy that this could be turning into one of those sort of matches to be enjoyed into the early evening with bags more tennis to play ... after it should have been killed off so much quicker.

Even in the first set I felt angst because getting off to a quick start and with his serve coming up, I thought he'd get a perfect 4-0 start. Not to be. But still he won the first set and then he won the second at a canter, and with a break in third, I felt relaxed. And I allowed myself to start thinking that even though he hadn't had the greatest of opposition, Rafa would have got through to the quarter-finals without dropping a set, his play had been fairly good, he hadn't given us any of the worry that previous RGs had in the early rounds and there were forthright, happy, determined and cheeky press conferences ... not statements saying that he felt like he was a 100 years old. So whatever the quarter-final outcome, he'd done well.

But as he ended up having to go to an unnecessary fourth set, this is what's troubling me. He's losing his serve at points when he has the advantage in a match and should be spring-boarding to success. And for all the good we've seen at this year's tournament, I still think Rafa is fragile. Again, I'm trying to get used to this new Rafa, but this fragility he has of losing winning positions in a set and today when holding the advantage for the match, is not going to bode well for him against Djokovic. And although we saw lots that was good in his attacking play, the minute he got rocked, he climbed back into that defensive shell and just hit from way behind the baseline again, handing the advantage to Sock who played far into the court and if that cost him points against a player like Jack Sock who didn't make the mistakes that Rafa's defensive play was hoping for ... well, Djerk isn't going to miss, is he?

If Rafa hadn't lost that third set, I would have been thinking, "great tournament Rafa. Lots to be positive about. I'm concerned about how quickly and easily you concede after breaking serve and that probably won't be good enough against a real quality player, but you've done great".  But the fragile nature of not being able to serve out for the match and losing his serve the second time to forfeit the set ... well, I think it shows that Rafa still has a way to go in being at the level that's required to win the biggest prizes, but that doesn't mean he won't get there ... umpires' interjections with time violations that potentially impose the outcome of a match notwithstanding.

And so we have it. "That" quarter-final.  But in the words of Rafa [as tweeted by @javieralbisu and translated by nou.amic] "Winning a final changes the year for you, a quarter-final doesn't. It's not the match of the year".

Quite.