Today, Michael Llodra lifted an exquisite half-volley with the care of a man spooning an egg over the net without cracking its shell. Against almost any other player on the planet, the shot was a sure winner. Against Rafael Nadal, it was merely a set up for an eye-popping response.
Streaking forward, Nadal nudged a precise pass at such a sharp angle Llodra nearly stumbled out of his shoes waving at the ball. That remarkable retrieval befuddled the French touch artist so thoroughly his eyebrows curled up like question marks as he glanced back at Nadal in disbelief.
Llodra kept posing questions, but Nadal had all the answers in an emphatic 6-2, 6-2 win in Madrid to stretch his clay-court winning streak to 36 matches and set up a semifinal showdown with either Roger Federer or Robin Soderling, the last man to beat Nadal on clay, in the fourth round of the 2009 French Open.
Recent results may suggest Nadal has been more vulnerable in the higher altitude of Madrid than any other clay-court tournament—in addition to his loss to Federer in the 2009 final, he was on the edge of elimination against Novak Djokovic in the 2009 semis, having to save three match points—but this year’s schedule shift that flip-flopped Madrid and Rome gave the King of Clay a week to acclimate to the conditions. Nadal bludgeoned Marcos Baghdatis in his opener and didn’t need to strike a shot in advancing to the quarters, as Juan Martin del Potro withdrew with a hip injury.
A refreshed Nadal struck shots with conviction from the outset today. He won 25 of 30 points played on his first serve, did not face a break point, delivered 27 winners against nine errors and even took the net away at times, winning 12 of 15 trips forward.
Llodra’s serve-and-volley tactics, fine feel and ability to take pace off shots can make him a joy to watch when he’s playing well. But for a 30-year-old coming off a three-set win yesterday, facing the rested five-time French Open champion on clay—in Spain—is a task as arduous as a high school kid squaring off against Noah Webster in a game of Scrabble.
The world No. 1 burst out of the blocks to a 4-0 lead without surrendering a single point on serve. Serving for the set, Nadal hit his only ace of the match, then sealed the set when Llodra sprayed successive returns.
To his credit, Llodra continued to scrap in the second set, saving a break point to hold for 2-1. The left-hander then fought off three break points in the fifth game of the second set, only to see Nadal produce the shot of the match—that running retrieval—which sparked a break and a 3-2 advantage. Nadal won 18 of the final 25 points to raise his career record against lefties to 54-5.
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—Richard Pagliaro*