Nadal: This Raging Bull is the Greatest Fighter in Tennis History
The story of the 2019 U.S. Open and one man’s battle to be the last man standing
Published in
16 min readSep 8, 2019
On a humid September evening in New York, six days before the Men’s Singles championship match will take place, Rafael Nadal is flitting about the court like a bumblebee with 14-inch biceps.
In his march to the finals, Nadal’s fourth-round against Marin Cilic is his toughest match.
The Croatian is the only player Nadal will play who has won a Grand Slam title or even beaten the Spaniard.¹
After losing his only set in the tournament, Nadal has turned up the pressure in this round-of-16 encounter, winning the third set 6–1, and going up two service breaks in the fourth set.
Nadal is serving for the match at 5–2, 30–30, when the point of the tournament takes place. Watch this video and see if you can figure out why this point is incomprehensible.
