While yesterday’s women’s quarterfinals at the Australian Open saw routine wins by Justine Henin and Jie Zheng, the men’s matches, while exciting at times, proved anticlimatic as injuries marred both contests.
Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal played a set and a half of stellar tennis before Nadal’s knee began bothering him early in the second set. Nadal tried to continue but chose to retire after going down early in the third, giving Murray the win at 6-3, 7-6(2), 3-0(r).
The other quarterfinal also ended up being a test of mind over body as Andy Roddick, battling a sore shoulder, found a way to crawl back into his match against Marin Cilic after losing the first two sets. Roddick attacked Cilic, choosing to play quick points almost out of necessity, and won the next two sets in an hour. But after squandering three early break point chances in the first game of the fifth set, Roddick let Cilic back in the match then went down a break himself. Cilic held on to serve out the final set to win 7-6(3), 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3.
All credit to Cilic for hanging around for a third straight time in a five setter, but Roddick really should have won that match. His choice to abandon attacking Cilic, which helped him win the third and fourth sets, was his downfall. I actually find this loss more annoying than Roddick’s loss to Federer at Wimbledon as Roddick basically threw away a solid game plan. I applaud Roddick fighting through pain and fatigue when he could have given up, but he and coach Larry Stefanki will need to work on Roddick’s mental focus if he wants a chance at one more Slam.
As far as the Murray/Nadal match goes, it looks like 2010 will be a repeat of 2009 for Nadal’s body. Murray now looks like he’s got a real shot to win the AO as he can now watch Federer and Djokovic beat themselves up in the next rounds while he awaits a very tired Cilic in his semifinal.
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