Dimitris Kouimtsidis
RAFAEL Nadal has been knocked out of the Australian Open.
The world number one suffered a shock defeat in the quarter-finals at the hands of Dominic Thiem.
The world number five stunned the Spaniard in a four-set thriller, 7-6 7-6 4-6 7-6 at Melbourne Park.
The Austrian has qualified for his first Australian Open semi-final and will face Germany’s Alexander Zverev on Friday.
The 33-year-old had defeated Thiem in the last two French Open finals, but the 26-year-old finally got his revenge.
“I had luck in the right situations, the net cord was on my side,” Thiem said.
“But it is necessary because he is one of the greatest of all time and you need some luck to beat him.”
Nadal seemed tense and tired throughout the entire match.
He was given a time violation in the second set for taking too long to serve after winning a brutal 19-shot rally.
That led to an irritated Nadal telling the umpire: “You don’t like good tennis.”
The Spaniard was still unhappy about the incident and spoke to the tournament supervisor Andreas Egli about it.
He later also had another disagreement with the umpire over not being allowed to challenge a Thiem serve.
In addition, he also regularly complained about the cool air blower next to his chair not working properly.
All these incidents highlighted Nadal’s edginess and translated to his game as he missed shots he would normally be expected to make.
After the game, however he said: “I don’t see myself with a negative attitude during the whole match.
“I had a good, positive, fighting spirit all the time.
I gave myself an opportunity until the last point.”
This helped me, thank you