Nadal and Federer fans: Injured Rafa or fit Kyrgios V Djokovic in final?

[ibbi]

Any Nadal fan who would rather have Kyrgios in the final is not a Nadal fan, they are a blithering idiot.

 

[Spencer Gore]

I can understand a Nadal fan not wanting to see their man in pain unable to play anywhere near their best. That AO final was painful to endure as a Nadal fan and has scarred a lot of us.

 

[bnjkn]

It's kind of hopeless either way, no?

 

[Rafa4LifeEver]

A question for the Nadal and Federer fans. If Rafa is not 100% would you rather he end up losing to Kyrgios in the semi-final so that Djokovic is given some sort of competition in the final (assuming Novak beats the South African-New Zealand-British player in his semi). Or would you rather Rafa plays the final whatever his condition, to at least give him a shot at the Grand Slam, even if he would be severely disadvantaged?
(By losing, I don't mean deliberately.)

A final loss to fellow ATG is better than a sf loss to a lazy player.

 

[prosperned]

Never count out Nadal. I’m just watching to see his BH/Serve. He’s going to change his serve motion to not use abdomen so I think his BH will be the major question. His BH was clearly hampered but he also hit some powerful winners of that side later in the match.

If he can actually get these back after injection some painkillers he’s in with a great chance still against Djoko

 

[tudwell]

Definerely a serious injury. He was serving much slower than usual, on average (a few good serves do not change the average).

Obviously, not the most serious kind of injury (i.e. the ones that force you to retire from the match), but serious enough to put you in a position incompatible to reach your best level. Injured Nadal can beat Fritz, not Novak. To have a chance against Novak, you can't have an andominal inury that makes you serve like a WTA player (exaggeration, but you get my point, his serve is severely damaged).

It's official. Nasal has a 7 mm abdominal fracture as per his morning medical test in London:

La heroicidad de Nadal: quiere jugar la semifinal con una rotura de siete milímetros en el abdominal

Mucha expectación por ver la sesión preparatoria de Rafael Nadal de cara a la semifinal de mañana con Nick Kyrgios. El tenista balear, que lleva una semana sin ejercitar su saque e

www.marca.com

But yeah, according to his haters, Nadal cannot be injured.

I mean, Djokovic was serving puff-balls in the 2011 US Open final due to his shoulder injury but it's a little rich to say he was seriously injured considering how good his form was otherwise. Nadal's game was a bit more hampered yesterday since he also struggled with the topspin backhand, but his slice was on point and clearly slicing against Fritz would have been an intelligent play to begin with, even if Nadal had been fully healthy. So the injury, whatever its objective measurements, didn't actually impact Nadal's ability to win the match too terribly much.