Muller stuns Rafa in five-set Wimbledon epic

Gilles Muller has produced the boilover of the 2017 Wimbledon championships, overcoming two-time champion Rafael Nadal in a five-set epic on Manic Monday.

Muller, who beat Nadal here at Wimbledon 12 years ago, repeated the feat when he triumphed 6-3 6-4 3-6 4-6 15-13 after four hours and 48 minutes.

The 34-year-old faces Marin Cilic in the quarterfinals.

“I just told myself, Look, I mean, I’m doing the best I can. I’m playing well. Just hang in there and you’re going to get your chances,” he said. “Got a few of them. Didn’t take the first ones. But still kept believing.

“Somehow in the end I made it.”

Muller is enjoying a stellar grasscourt season, having won the title in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and reaching the semifinals at Queen’s.

Yet he’s finally cracked the code this fortnight at the All England Club, outdoing by far his best Wimbledon results with his run to the last eight.

His previous bests were third-round finishes in 2005 – the year he beat Nadal in the second round – and 2011, where Nadal ended his run.

Nadal, yet again at Wimbledon, suffered an earlier-than-anticipated exit.

“He played well. I think I didn’t play my best the first two sets. I make a couple mistakes that make me then play all the time against the score. And that’s so difficult against a player like him,” Nadal mused.

“Especially in the fifth, he played great game. I was there, fighted until the last ball, with the right attitude. Probably was not my best match, but at the same time I played against a very uncomfortable opponent.

“I lost in the fourth round. That’s not the result that I was expecting. It’s true that I played some good matches, but the same time is true that I didn’t want to lose that match. So is tough to analyse that in a positive way right now.

“I play better than other years, true. At the same time I was ready for important things, so I lost an opportunity.”

Muller executed his brand of old-school, swashbuckling serve-and-volley tennis to perfection in the first two sets on No.1 Court, only to watch as Nadal, buoyed by the crowd and outwardly displaying his competitive passion, even the ledger.

Yet the Luxembourg lefty always had the advantage of serving first, and having held for a 5-4 lead, he earned two match points in the 10th game.

Here, Nadal dug in, displaying the reserves of confidence – stemming from a resurgent season – that many pundits felt would vault him over the Wimbledon fourth-round hurdle he’d failed to clear since 2011.

Gilles Muller joins Lleyton Hewitt (Oz Open 2004, 05) & Roger Federer (#Wimbledon 06, 07) as only men to beat Nadal twice at the same slam.

— Darren Walton (@DarrenWalton369) July 10, 2017

He levelled at 5-5 and from here, both men held. And held. And held.

Nadal earned four break points in a titanic 19th game before Muller finally served his way out of trouble for a 10-9 lead. Muller earned his third and fourth match points in the very next game, but couldn’t convert.

Yet the trend seemed to be one of Muller holding serve more comfortably than the Spaniard.

In game 22 Nadal trailed 0-30, a game that began when he took the extraordinary step of holding up play due to the sun glinting off a metal hoarding in the No.1 Court stands, which required umpire intervention and spectators to stand up and block the rays from the offending panel. In game 24 he trailed 15-30.

Both times he held is nerve, and his serve.

Muller became the sixth man to beat Nadal at least twice at grand slams, joining…Federer, Djokovic, Murray, Hewitt and Ferrer.

— Ravi Ubha (@raviubha) July 10, 2017

Yet Muller, who looked increasingly fatigued yet somehow managed to keep producing venomous serves and picking off crisp volleys, remained unflappable.

“After I was struggling a bit on my service games in the third and fourth set, I kind of started playing well on my serve again, and won my games more comfortably,” Muller said.

“I felt like at the end I was there all the time on his serves. I was at Love-30, 15-30, 30-All. I felt like I was there all the time. I had a couple match points.

“I just felt like what I was doing was the right way, just had to be patient.”

In the 28th game he quickly moved ahead 0-30 and arrived at 15-40 when Nadal shanked a forehand long. This was the first time he’d earned two match points in a bunch, rather than non-consecutively.

He converted when Nadal missed another forehand.