U.S. Open Diary: Nadal Snags Career Slam

Benjamin Norman for The Wall Street Journal

Rafael Nadal

The Journal provides analysis of the U.S. Open men’s singles final match between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The Journal’s Carl Bialik leads a group offering commentary on the match and the CBS/ESPN2 telecast.

Fans hoping for a Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal final may lament that instead Nadal and Novak Djokovic will play Sunday, weather permitting. But these two players -- who will be ranked 1 and 2 in the world, respectively, after this tournament -- have the potential to deliver a classic of their own.

Last year in Madrid, Nadal beat Djokovic in a best-of-three match that took longer than Nadal's and Djokovic's best-of-five fourth-round victories here this year -- combined. Over more than four hours on clay, Nadal came back after losing the first set to Djokovic, taking the last two in tiebreaks. The tennis was breathtaking and draining. Nadal, plagued by injuries possibly exacerbated by that marathon match, didn't beat another top-eight player for a year, when he won Madrid this May. During that drought, Nadal lost three straight matches to Djokovic in straight sets, winning more than three games in just two sets of those matches. Djokovic is 0-11 against Nadal on clay and grass, but 7-3 on hardcourts.

That dry spell for Nadal is worth recalling amid the latest short-sighted storyline about men's tennis. Those who draw broad conclusions about one of four annual major tournaments are bound to overreact. In 2008, Nadal ruled. Last year, he was hobbled and might never regain his form. Today, with a 20-match winning streak at major tournaments -- 17 in straight sets -- Nadal is the favorite, and rightly so. But tomorrow, the new storyline could be that Djokovic has pulled off an upset for the ages for the second time in two days, against one of the world's best players, and the Big Two -- "great-greats," as Djokovic called Rafa-Roger after his match Saturday -- are now the Big Three.

Don't assume that Djokovic won't have anything left after his five-setter against Federer. As Djokovic said in his postmatch press conference, the first four sets weren't all that draining. Nadal won after playing a much more grueling semifinal at the Australian Open in 2009, a five-set, five-hour battle with Fernando Verdasco. (At a recent press conference, Nadal joked, "I gonna lose for sure, no?" about his next match in Australia, against Federer, which Nadal won in five sets.) And of the 15 men in U.S. Open history who have won a semi in five sets, eight have gone on to win the final. Plus rain may buy Djokovic some time. This match may need a lot of it: Nadal and Djokovic are, with Andy Murray, probably the best at retrieving balls on tour. "We are gonna have a lot of long rallies," Djokovic said. Look out for four or five sets' worth of them.