The men’s semi-finals in Wimbledon could hardly be more different: On the one hand, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have the most played duel of the Open Era – on the other hand, Kevin Anderson and John Isner play for the match of their lives.
South African Anderson has a difficult additional task ahead of him: What in the world can happen if Roger Federer is beaten after a 2-0 set deficit and a match point, and that in Wimbledon of all places, where the Swiss maestro has triumphed eight times? Answer: Some things. Because the chance of the first final on Church Road for the 32-year-old will not be obscured by the next high calibre à la Nadal or Djokovic, but by the American Isner, who, at the tender age of 33, will reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time ever.
Anderson knows how the Grand Slam semi-finals will go: last year at the US Open he entered a major’s final for the first time, showing a new, “louder” side of himself with his fist after winning points and a “rock star” mentality. However, there was nothing to get against Rafael Nadal. Nevertheless, Anderson played himself back into the spotlight: At the end of 2015 he had cracked the top ten for the first time, but slipped out of the top 50 due to a shoulder and ankle injury (with surgery). 2017 saw him play his way up again and a few weeks ago he reached his highest position ever with seventh place.
And John Isner? He has a special relationship with Wimbledon: The numbers of the record match 2010 in set five were 70:68 against Nicolas Mahut – but surprisingly, the 2.08-metre man never got any further than in round three. And in 2018, too, Isner almost came to an early end and fended off a match point in round two against Ruben Bemelmans. But now it is “the best Grand Slam tournament I have ever played – and I’ve been there for eleven years,” as Isner said after his quarter-final win over Milos Raonic – after eating a KitKat, as after every win.
Isner, a stable top 20 player for many years, had slipped slightly after a mediocre 2016 and 2017 to return even more strongly in 2018: In Miami, he won his biggest title in the final against Alexander Zverev, his first in a Masters 1000 event. “He has a lot of confidence, especially since winning in Miami,” Anderson knows. “He plays quite freely from the baseline. It will depend on a few points here and there.”
So far, Isner leads with eight to three in the balance of the two serve giants, in addition to some encounters during college times. But the last match-up was more than three years ago. In the only duel on grass, in Queen’s 2008, Anderson won in two sets
Even if the duel between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal is considered perhaps the most legendary of the last 15 years, this is the most played match between Nadal and Djokovic: 51 times the two legends faced each other, 26 times Djokovic won, 25 times Nadal. The balance on grass: Two to one for the Spaniard, but the Serb won the last match in the 2011 Wimbledon final in four sets.
Although Nadal is a double and Djokovic a triple Wimbledon winner, a meeting in the semi-finals was not necessarily a foregone conclusion. Nadal had not made it beyond the round of 16 since the final in 2011, one time in the first and two times in the second round. In 2018, however, the love between Nadal and Wimbledon seems to have been rekindled, especially since the weather conditions are right and the Centre Court in Wimbledon is playing itself out for Nadal in a feasible way.
For almost exactly two years now, the big question in world tennis has been how motivated Djokovic is, how injured he is; his successful team around Marian Vajda had changed after the French Open victory in 2016 and the subsequent failures at first and now gradually recalled. “If I have to compare my previous level with today’s, I guess I’m close again,” he said after his victory over Kei Nishikori. But: “I am another person, another player.”
Djokovic had already reached the final in Queen’s, where he lost to Marin Cilic despite match points. In Wimbledon he was considered the second favourite after Roger Federer even before the tournament started; the current odds are almost equal for Nadal and him. Will it be enough against Nadal for a final comeback? Last year, after his defeat of Gilles Muller in the last sixteen, Nadal disappointedly stated that he felt he could do “great things” – this year he seems to want to make up for this. “The only way to win is to play very well,” he spent a fairly simple battle plan for the match against Djokovic.