Staff Reporter.
(AFP) – Rafael Nadal overcame a freak injury scare when he accidentally hit himself with his own racquet to reach the US Open third round on Thursday.
The Spaniard defeated Italy’s Fabio Fognini 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 but only after suffering a bizarre self-inflicted injury when leading 3-0 in the fourth set.
The four-time champion, and holder of a men’s record 22 Grand Slam titles, was hurt when his racquet bounced back off the court as he stretched for a ball and hit him squarely on the nose.
The 36-year-old Australian and French Open champion dropped his racquet to the Arthur Ashe Stadium floor and sprinted to the sidelines where he lay on his back with his nose bloodied.
He required a medical timeout to have the wound tended before resuming the match with a bandage across the bridge of his nose.
Nadal goes on to face France’s Richard Gasquet against whom he boasts a 17-0 career record after coming through his late night scrap which saw a total of 15 breaks of serve and 97 unforced errors.
Fognini defeated Nadal from two sets down at the US Open in 2015.
Buoyed by that memory, the 35-year-old swept through the first set with breaks in the third and seventh games against a sluggish and error-plagued Nadal.
It was the second successive match in which Nadal had dropped the first set after suffering the same fate in his opener against Australian wildcard Rinky Hijikata.
The first five games of the second set were all breaks with Nadal forced to call the trainer to treat blisters on his left hand at 2-3 down.
Fognini stretched to a 4-2 lead before Nadal reeled off the next four games to take the set and level the tie.
In each of the first two sets, Nadal had managed to hit a meagre three winners.
The four-time champion, however, then doubled his winners count to grab the third set against a suddenly dispirited Fognini who needed a medical timeout to have his right foot bandaged.
Nadal coasted to a 3-0 lead when his bizarre injury temporarily stalled his progress to the last 32.
ALCARAZ INTO US OPEN LAST 32
Teenager Carlos Alcaraz fended off a late push from veteran Argentine Federico Coria to emerge with a 6-2 6-1 7-5 win on Thursday to reach the US Open third round where he will face American Jenson Brooksby.The young Spaniard used his all-court speed and punishing forehand to win the final 10 points of the first set and broke Coria’s serve to open the second to cruise to a 2-0 sets lead.
Coria refused to go down without a fight and pushed Alcaraz in a marathon game at 4-4 in the third set.
But the third seed, who saved 14 of the 15 break points he faced in the match, rifled two unreturnable serves to get out of trouble and sealed the win with a two-handed backhand for his 46th victory of the year.
“It’s been a great year for me but it’s not the end of the year,” Alcaraz said.
“I am very happy to be the player with the most victories but I have to look forward and go for it.”
Next up Alcaraz is a meeting with Brooksby who beat Cincinnati Open champion and 25th seed Borna Coric 6-4 7-6(10) 6-1 earlier in the day.
The Californian saved seven set points in the tense second set to reach the third round at Flushing Meadows for the second consecutive year. Last year, he took the first set off Novak Djokovic before falling to the tournament’s finalist.
Brooksby’s emphatic shouts of “Come on!” got under Coric’s skin leading the Croatian to tell the chair umpire that while he respected the 21-year-old’s fight, “It’s a bit too much, it’s every point”.