Jurgen Melzer is an awkward sort of a guy. Unlike most of the pros, who have perfected a nonchalant but still purposeful between-point strut, he doesn’t look all that sure of himself as he makes his hunched way around the court. He can also get tentative when he argues with the umpire. Melzer begins by taking an outraged step forward, which is good, but then he tends to hesitate and think about what he’s going to say, which ruins the whole thing.
When it comes to his post-match celebrations, though, Melzer’s lack of polish works to his advantage. One of my favorite tennis photos of 2010 was the shot of his reaction—big smile, arms open wide—after he beat Novak Djokovic in the quarters of the French Open. His face was a picture of unaffected happiness. Today, after he beat Rafael Nadal and shook the respectful loser's hand at the net, Melzer walked out to mid-court to acknowledge the crowd’s applause without having a go-to move ready. He hasn't pulled off many, or any, upsets of this magnitude, so he probably hasn't been honing his somersaults or his drops-to-his-knees. So Melzer did what came naturally. He smiled and clenched his fists. It wasn’t as memorable or joyful as Roland Garros, but then again, Shanghai isn’t Paris.
Still, the two are connected in Melzer’s mind. He said today that his mindset changed after the French Open this year. “When you make the semis of a Grand Slam, anything’s possible,” he said, adding that he played as well as he can play against Nadal. It’s hard to argue with him. He pushed the No. 1 player in the world around for the vast majority of three sets; he only lost the second one because he forced Rafa to throw caution to the wind on his backhand, and it worked for a few games. But Melzer reasserted control early in the third and only got stronger once he’d broken at 3-2. As Jason Goodall very dryly put it after Melzer belted an ace on the T to go up 40-0 in the following game, “We haven’t seen any extra tension in the arm so far.”
What’s surprising is that Melzer had never taken a set from Nadal in their three previous matches. His down-the-line backhand, with its graceful extension, is a world-class shot. It should theoretically work well against someone like Nadal, who tosses in his share of short crosscourt backhands. It certainly helped Melzer in the final game. Nadal had just saved two match points to hold for 3-5 and was bouncing like a boxer, ready to make his final stand. But Melzer squashed any thought of a turnaround by immediately drilling a backhand up the line for an easy winner. That was the thing: Whether it was his serve—Melzer had 14 aces—his lightning-strike crosscourt forehand, or that backhand up the line, he made beating Nadal look almost easy today. I guess anything’s easy on a day when you can wind up and send a forehand a few inches from the line at top speed.
Rafa agreed that Melzer played well and played aggressively, but that he had a hand in letting it happen. It’s true, his serve was off, his shots lacked the sting and penetration that we’ve seen from them since the beginning of the U.S. Open, and he even threw in a couple of tired-looking shots at the start of the third set. On the one hand, three weeks of tennis caught up with him. On another hand, he faced a guy whose confidence has grown recently and who is still chasing a spot in the World Tour Final. But on yet another hand, it’s proof that Nadal will never be able to slide by with his B game on hard courts. Since Wimbledon, he’s won the U.S. and Japan Opens on the surface, but he’s also lost to Marcos Baghdatis, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, and Jurgen Melzer. If he’s not fully confident and aggressive on this surface on a particular day, he’ll be punished for it.
But he was fun to watch nonetheless. When Nadal started desperately hammering backhands in the second set, it briefly reminded me of a match that he won from two sets down over Ivan Ljubicic in Madrid five years ago. He was so far behind that he just let loose, playing more quickly and taking more chances than normal. That time he had the home crowd at his back, and they helped carry him all the way through. This time, once he’d evened the match, Nadal went back to being conservative and gave the initiative to Melzer again. Down 2-5 and 15-40, though, Nadal had his moment. He fought back to game point, and then hit a fantastic reflex backhand passing shot. He pumped his fist, kicked his leg, and, like I said, bounced up and down like a boxer. I still didn’t have the feeling that he was going to break; Melzer had just looked too strong, and even, for once, too sure of himself, in his previous service game. I was right; Nadal was beaten. But even in defeat, he managed to put a charge in the building in that final game, to give the crowd whatever he could and make his opponent earn what's likely the biggest win of his career. That, as much as a respectful handshake at the net or a kind word in the press conference, is what being a good loser is all about.