Melbourne: Rafael Nadal held back time, for one match at least, when he rallied for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-2 win over German teenager Alexander Zverev to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open.
The 14-time major winner is on a comeback after an extended injury layoff, yet he finished stronger in the 4-hour, 6-minute match on Rod Laver Arena as Zverev tightened up with cramping and nerves.
“I enjoyed a lot this great battle. I was losing the last couple of times in the fifth set and I said to myself, ‘today’s the day’,” said ninth-seeded Nadal, who had lost eight of the previous nine times he’d trailed 2-1 in a best-of-five set match.
His 30-year-old legs, conditioned by 236 Grand Slam matches, carried him all the way.
“Well, fighting — and running a lot,” Nadal said, when asked to explain the difference. “I think you know, everybody knows how good Alexander is — he’s the future of our sport and the present, too.”
Milos Raonic is here pursuing his first major title, aiming to improve on his runs to the semi-finals in Australia and the final at Wimbledon last year. He reached the fourth round with a 6-2, 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-3 win over No. 25 Gilles Simon and will next play No. 13 Roberto Bautista Agut, who beat David Ferrer 7-5, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (3), 6-4.
Nadal will get another veteran next after US Open semi-finalist Gael Monfils beat Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 7-6 (1), 6-4.
In another gripping five-setter, but on an outside court, wild card entry Denis Istomin followed his upset win over defending champion Novak Djokovic with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Pablo Carreno Busta.
In an exchange of breaks in the fifth set, Nadal broke to open, then dropped his own serve, before breaking Zverev again.
Nadal finished with 43 winners and 34 unforced errors, while Zverev — hitting harder and trying more to find the lines — had 58 winners and 74 unforced errors.
In early women’s matches, Ekaterina Makarova led by a set and 4-0 but had a mid-match fade, needing three sets and almost three hours to finally beat WTA Finals champion Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-3.
“An amazing fight,” Makarova said of her first win over sixth-seeded Cibulkova, the 2014 finalist at Melbourne Park. “I got, to be honest, a bit tight at 4-0 in the second set. But I’m still here.”
She’ll now take on last year’s semi-finalist Johanna Konta, who beat former No. 1-ranked Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 6-1, in a rematch of their fourth-round encounter here last year.
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni continued her unlikely run with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 win over Maria Sakkari, and so did American qualifier Jennifer Brady.
Before this week, the 34-year-old Lucic-Baroni hadn’t won a match at Melbourne Park since her debut here in 1998. The 19-year gap in between match wins at a Grand Slam tournament broke the record set by Kimiko Date-Krumm.
The 1999 Wimbledon semi-finalist next plays No. 116-ranked Brady, who had never played in the main draw of a major before she qualified for this week.
The 21-year-old Brady had a 7-6 (4), 6-2 win over 14th-seeded Elena Vesnina on Show Court 2.
