Rafael Nadal walked through to the 2019 US Open final with a straight-set victory against no. 24 seed Italian Matteo Berrettini with a comprehensive 7-6(6), 6-4, 6-1 victory, but almost an hour and a half the match looked a lot less one-sided than it was expected.
The newbie Berrettini was not fazed by the deafening roar the crowd tribute to his 18-time Major winner opponent during the warm-up rallies: he started with a good attitude, sticking to his game that is based on his monster first serve and powerful forehand. Nadal is with his back to the LED wall while he is returning, and Berrettini takes advantage of it with some surgically precise drop shots. But still the Italian was the only one who had to face break points during the first set, five of them (one of which was a set point), all canceled with courageous winners. It took a tie-break to decide who was to get ahead after the first set, and it was a hell of a tie-break: Berrettini sprinted ahead 4-0 capitalizing on an early double fault by Nadal and doubling down with a cross-court backhand return winner. But the Spaniard little by little, point by point inched back to the tail of his opponent, who squandered two set points on 6-4, one of which with a drop shot that died into the net, and ended up conceding the set with an open court forehand unforced error.
The loss of that mammoth 74-minute set would have killed a rhino, but Berrettini shook off the disappointment with nonchalance, canceled two break points in the first two service games of the second set and kept his head down to keep his hopes to level the match alive. But at 3-3, a couple of stunning passing shots by Nadal set up the break that secured the second set for the Spaniard, much more effective than his opponent on his second serve (74% against 45% at the end of the match) and still without a break point faced on his service games. Berrettini’s energy during baseline rallies dropped slightly after the first set, but enough to allow Nadal to get his grip on the match and not letting it go.
Similarly to what happened during the first semifinal between Medvedev and Dimitrov, the third set was completely one-sided: Berrettini could not maintain the intensity of the first two hours of play and ended up giving way to Nadal who closed the match after 2 hours, 34 minutes to clinch his 27th Major final in his career.
Regardless of this match’s result, it has been a dream fortnight for Italian Matteo Berrettini, the first Italian to reach this stage of the competition since Corrado Barazzutti in 1977 (defeated by Jimmy Connors in a controversial match on the Forest Hill’s har-tru): the standing ovation that the Arthur Ashe crowd dedicated to him while exiting the court will certainly be one of his lifetime memories and will spur him to work for even better results starting from the sparkling new no.13 that will be next to his name in next Monday’s ATP ranking.
As to Rafael Nadal, his quest for the 19th Major title will find its last obstacle on Sunday, when he will face Daniil Medvedev, whom he defeated 6-3, 6-0 in Montreal a few weeks ago in the Rogers Cup final.
