Nadal sweats out win at Indian Wells

A line-call malfunction blew Juan Martin del Potro’s mind, but a moth in the face didn’t deter Roger Federer as the Swiss star advanced to the semifinal of the BNP Paribas Open where he will meet Rafael Nadal on Saturday.

Federer cruised after an explosive opening game against del Potro to win 6-3, 6-2. But Nadal needed to work a great deal harder in a dramatic encounter before overcoming another Argentine, David Nalbandian, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. At the end of the second set, Nadal was two points away from defeat against the 2002 Wimbledon finalist, who is finally showing signs of his proper form after a series of injuries.

Then, having broken to take a commanding lead in the third, Nadal had his supporters writhing in their seats as he fired a forehand wide and netted a difficult smash to go 15-40 down while serving for the match.

A 22-stroke rally ensued before Nalbandian netted a backhand and when the Argentine put a drop shot into the net, there was no way back against a champion who was straining every fiber in his body to ensure he would not be beaten.

Nadal had taken a month off after losing that epic Australian Open final against Novak Djokovic and, on his return to the ATP tour at Indian Wells, he has shown every sign of being up for the fight in true Rafa style. He wanted this win badly and it showed.

The fact that he had been pushed to the limit was a credit to Nalbandian’s racket skills, because it requires remarkable timing to be able to handle balls that are spinning at you at over 3,000 revs per minute. Technology used by the Tennis Channel revealed that over 50 percent of Nadal’s shots were spinning at that speed, while Nalbandian only managed to impart enough topspin on 3,000 revs on 8 percent of his hits.

But in the early stages, the Spaniard was far from comfortable on the spacious Stadium Court as Nalbandian’s court craft enabled him to pull Nadal out of position — not something you see happening very often.

It had all been very different for Federer. Seldom does a match get decided in the opening game of the first set but, with hindsight, it seemed to be the case on another glorious sunny afternoon in the Californian desert. Federer, who had lost the first set of both his previous matches against Milos Raonic and Tomaz Bellucci, found himself having to fend off break points right at the start after missing a couple of backhands.

Then, at deuce, Federer hit a first serve that was called good even though del Potro, and even Roger himself, seemed to think it was out. Del Potro challenged and, unusually, Hawk Eye didn’t work. There was an embarrassed silence as the umpire Mohamed Lahyani, the crowd and the players waited for something to come up on the screen.

When Lahyani was told in his headpiece that no replay was available, he had no option but to stay with the original call. “But it was clearly out,” del Potro complained. “At least you can replay the point.”

But, in fact, he couldn’t. If Lahyani had overruled the call immediately that would have been possible. “But I couldn’t be sure with the ball curving at that angle,” the official replied in answer to del Potro’s repeated complaints which continued at the next two changeovers after Federer, having been given the ace which wasn’t, had held serve. To defuse the situation, Lahyani gallantly agreed that he had made a mistake even though he had no control over the technology.

Del Potro is a very mild-mannered man who seldom gets upset on court. But this seemed to blown his mind. The fact that he had lost to Federer three times already this year would not have helped and he admitted as much afterwards.

“It was clearly out but machine didn’t work,” he said. “Don’t know what happened. I don’t have a problem with Mohamed. Everyone knows he is nice umpire. But he made a mistake. I make mistake with my forehand, he makes a mistake with the call, that’s it. I think after that I was not concentrating on the match. It was tough for me to play at good leveI when I saw him playing at high level. I didn’t feel comfortable playing the match, but that was my problem.”

Del Potro knew that a good start was essential if he was going to break the sequence of defeats against the man he had beaten so surprisingly in the 2009 US Open final and when fate deprived him of that chance, he lost it. Tactically he was all over the place as the match progressed, retreating further and further behind his baseline to receive serve. In fact, over 75 percent of his returns overall were played several feet behind his baseline and Federer took full advantage of that with a series of brilliant drop shots.

“I just wanted to see if they worked,” he said. “Going forward, big guys always tend to move slower than quick, little guys. Just for variation you almost always have to do it against Juan Martin.”

So, after he and his family had caught what he described as “The Flying Around the World Bug” as opposed to the “Indian Wells Bug” which has laid many players low, Federer finally felt 100 percent again and played like it. After that opening game, nothing could put him off — not even the moth which flew into his face and caused him to miss a backhand. Even poor del Potro had to smile at that one.