Rafael Nadal has been knocked out of the Australian Open, with Dominic Thiem taking advantage of a mid-match meltdown and holding off the world number one to win an epic quarter-final in four sets.
Nadal came close to forcing a fifth set, breaking Thiem’s serve at 5-4 in the fourth as the Austrian double-faulted and made three unforced forehand errors.
But the Spaniard then lost a third tiebreak and thus the match in just over four hours, with Thiem converting his third match point to win 7-6(3) 7-6(4) 4-6 7-6(6).
This is the first time Thiem has made the semi finals of a Slam not played on clay. He has made the semis at the French Open four times and the final twice, losing both of those times to Nadal.
Nadal was trying to come back from two sets down for the first time since Wimbledon 2007.
He won the third set, breaking Thiem in the final game to pinch it, but then in the fourth was broken at 1-1 and never recovered.
Things started going poorly for Nadal after he went up a break midway through the second set, as he got angry at the chair umpire for getting a time violation following a lengthy rally.
“It is really amazing after this point that you put the chrono straight. It is really amazing,” he fumed at umpire Aurelie Tourte, suggesting he should be given extra time because of how long the previous point was.
“You don’t like the good tennis. You don’t like the good tennis.”
After his blow-up Nadal was broken by Thiem in a terrible service match to make it 4-4.
“He is distracted. Clearly that time violation has rattled him,” Jim Courier said on Nine.
“He feels that he has been jobbed and the chair umpire should have realised how those two points were extraordinarily physical in a row.”
He also complained that the air conditioning unit next to his bench wasn’t working, which was fixed during the third set.
We’re now guaranteed a first-time Australian Open finalist with Thiem to face Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals on Friday.
