Rafa leaves Fritz crying

WIMBLEDON, England—On an historic afternoon in the 100th year of Wimbledon’s famed Centre Court, the young Southern Californian and the not-so-young guy from past and present played a match for the ages.  And for the opportunity to reach the semi-finals of a tennis tournament whose very name, Wimbledon implies the greatness on display Wednesday.

The older guy, Rafael Nadal, once more showed the courage and consistency which has awed everyone and now at age 37 3-6, 7-5, 8-6 z91—4 under the new tiebreak system for majors.

The quarterfinal lasted 4 hours, 21 minutes and kept intact Nadal’s chance to expand his record to 23 and 0, remained unbeaten in 23 grand slam tournaments this year..  Rafa has the opportunity to win the  Grand Slam championships and even—less realistically perhaps—to win the actual Grand Slam, all four majors in a calendar year.

That last was accomplished in 1969 by Rod Laver, who Wednesday, wearing one of those huge straw hats was in a seat at Centre Court.

Fritz, 25, who has been been described as one of the future US  tennis greats, beat Nadal in the Indian Wells final in March.

Rafa was injured. He apparently was hurt Wednesday but refused calls to leave the match . 

A doctor gave Nadal some pills; the trainer tried to relax the muscle.

“They can’t do much,” Nadal said. “Nothing can be fixed when you have a thing like this.”

When action resumed, Nadal clearly was compromised. It was hard not to think: Might he give up?

Nadal acknowledged that went through his mind. Fritz did, too.

“It definitely made me kind of think. I kind of stopped being as aggressive,”  said Fritz. “I feel like I let it kind of get to me a little bit. It left me crying.”