Serendipity has been the keynote of Rafael Nadal’s first appearance at Washington’s Citi Open. Received with rapturous acclaim from the moment he arrived in the US capital following his late entry as a wildcard, Nadal has embraced the city and its people with enthusiasm, a mesmeric presence at an event played before raucous capacity crowds. But serendipity took a darker turn for the top-seeded Spaniard on Thursday night as he was unexpectedly bundled out of the tournament in the third round, falling to a 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 defeat against the inspired Lloyd Harris.
If the loss was a hurtful one for Nadal, who will be supplanted in the top three by Stefanos Tsitsipas with less than four weeks to go until the US Open, at least the pain did not appear to be physical. Nadal’s opening match, a gruelling three-hour battle against Jack Sock full of long, punishing rallies, aggravated the foot injury that undermined his French Open campaign and subsequently forced him to miss Wimbledon and the Olympics. Despite limping heavily between points towards the end of that contest, the Spaniard insisted afterwards that the problem did not require further rest, and his performance against Harris largely endorsed that verdict.
Nadal lacked some of his trademark explosiveness, particularly when forced to move sharply to his backhand side, and occasionally declined to chase down balls he might normally look to retrieve. But the grimaces and hobbling that punctuated the latter stages against Sock were notably absent. Then again, this was an altogether different challenge for Nadal, whose difficulty lay not in navigating his way through lengthy baseline exchanges, as he had done against the American, but in getting himself into rallies in the first place.
Committed to first-strike tennis, Harris was unplayable at times. His serve, struck with power, accuracy and intelligent variation against one of the sport’s best returners, was for the most part impregnable. Harris backed it up with some huge hitting off the ground, taking a leaf out of Nadal’s book as he sought to dominate with his forehand. In the opening set alone, Harris won 95% of the points behind his first delivery and blasted 16 winners to just six for Nadal.
It has been a breakthrough season for Harris, who has risen to a career-high ranking of 50th since reaching his first final at 500-level as a qualifier in Dubai five months ago. The rangy South African arrived in Washington with just a solitary win from his past three tournaments, but here he rose to the occasion magnificently.
“Today was really special. I think I have had some big wins, and this year I have beaten some grand slam champions,” said Harris, who has claimed the scalps of Stan Wawrinka and Dominic Thiem this season. “But to beat a 20-time grand slam champion, and especially in front of a full crowd and with such an amazing atmosphere, it was definitely something very special.”
If the initially brisk tempo limited the possibility of Nadal doing further damage to his foot, it did little to assuage his evident frustration as the match wore on. Having paid the price for a loose service game in the seventh game of the opening set, Nadal altered his return position as Harris stepped up to serve for the set, retreating deep behind the baseline. He was rewarded with a rare break point, but the South African quickly snuffed out the danger, a pair of huge forehand winners sandwiching a deft drop volley as he secured the lead.
Nadal redoubled his intensity at the start of the second set, racing through his opening service game before signalling his intentions with a pair of flashing return winners. Having withstood the initial onslaught, Harris finally buckled in the fourth game, Nadal capitalising on some rare errors from his opponent to break with an incisive forehand pass. Mistakes again proved costly for the the South African in the sixth game, Nadal forging ahead 5-1 before levelling the match with an ace.
When the top seed earned two break points with a flicked forehand at the start of the decider, he looked set fair for the quarter-finals. Harris, though, had other ideas, firing the 10th of 16 aces to lay the foundations for a more attritional passage of play. The two men matched each other step for step until the 10th game, when Harris sealed victory with a topspin lob on his first match point.
“The most positive thing is my foot was better today than yesterday, so that’s the best news possible,” said Nadal, who will now move on to Toronto. “I played against a player that played well. For the moment, I think I played better than yesterday, but in the third when I had opportunities, the truth is his serve was huge and I played this last game really badly.
“I was able to move a bit better, so that is very important, especially for me personally, to keep enjoying the sport and keep having energy, believing that important things are possible. And then I need to keep improving. It’s true. I honestly didn’t have two easy months. I had a lot of problems with my foot. I was not able to practise all the days that I really wanted, but I did as much as I could, and I tried hard here.
“You can’t have mistakes in the key moments, and in the key moments in the last game, I was a little bit more nervous. My serve was not working the proper way. That’s it. Yes, well done for him. It’s a great victory for him. I wish him all the very best.”