LONDON — It was a classic case of misdirection.
Wimbledon wonks were pointing ahead to Monday’s girl wars — Maria Sharapova vs. Serena Williams, or Kim Clijsters vs. Justine Henin. Local sports fans were worried about Germany’s imposing soccer team that was about to play England. And these days the once dominant Steffi Graf is “mothering” in Vegas and Boris Becker (when he’s not out on the town) is in the commentary booth (implying Rafa was faking his injury).
Still, the draw was crowded with 19 Germans, including Philipp Kohlschreiber, who had given Andy Roddick a decent four-set test on Friday.
But when it came to notoriety, Austrian tennis (with the French Open and Wimbledon runs of Jurgen Melzer, the choking incident in Austrian League tennis by Stefan Koubek and the un-retirement of Thomas Muster) was getting more ink than the quiet surge of German tennis.
Then, to make matters worse, Radio Wimbledon commentators didn’t even know how to pronounce Phillipp Petzschner‘s name. Still, Germans could take hope. Eleven of them had been in the year-end top 100 last year and five had reached the third round of Wimbledon.
Petzschner got to the semis at the Halle warm-up where he lost to Roger Federer. Now, for the first time he hoped to reach the fourth round of a Slam and after he collected the first and third sets of his Centre Court battle with Rafa Nadal the upset flags were foisted high above Wimbledon.
But the world No. 1, even on his off-surface grass, is a force. Great speed, powerful arms and wrist, fierce mind: Nadal was not about to collapse. But ironically, it was his problematic knee which turned this match.
An injury time-out for his right knee, with Rafa leading 2-1 in the fourth set rattled the German, re-invigorated the Spaniard and completely changed the arc of the match.
With his (are they injured or not) legs suddenly back in form, Rafael Nadal powered a running backhand winner. He dismissed warnings of getting coaching from the chair ump to win his second straight five-set, come-from-behind match at Wimbledon 6-4, 4-6, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-3. Petzschner later said “I’m just pissed off and sad…Maybe it was just a clever way to take a timeout there.” But then the German softened, saying, “I don’t say that he just did [the injury timeout] to break my rhythm.”
Of course, this is not the way Rafa wanted to orchestrate his run to the final and another possible meeting with Mr. Federer. But, despite his long matches (13 sets already) and a not-so-happy controversy, the King of Clay, like his foes Roger and Novak Djokovic, did not crumble in the face of a fierce early scare.
Still, Rafa revealed that he had knee problems in Miami, where he lost to Roddick, in Monte Carlo where he won and he did withdraw from Barcelona due to his knees. The ongoing struggles of tennis’ No. 1 player with his knees is not only a cautionary omen for this tournament, it is a cloud over the future of one the most charismatic and appealing players of this or any other era.
