It was just three minutes shy of his epic four-hour, three-minute victory over Novak Djokovic in Madrid in 2009.

Editor’s note: The match was originally recorded and reported as 3:59, but as it was 3:59 and 44 seconds, it was officially rounded up to 4:00 later in the day.

Rafael Nadal just played the second-longest best-of-three-sets match of his career, and just like his longest one, he won it.

The Spaniard, who’s playing his first tournament since Roland Garros in Bastad, Sweden this week, battled past No. 36-ranked Mariano Navone in a four-hour marathon, 6-7 (2), 7-5, 7-5, to move through to the semifinals of the ATP 250 clay-court event.

It was just minutes away from becoming the longest best-of-three match of his career—that honor goes to his 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (9) victory over Novak Djokovic in the semifinals in Madrid in 2009, which lasted a ridiculous four hours and three minutes.

Both matches rank among the Top 5 longest best-of-three-sets ATP matches, since the ATP began recording match times in 1991.

LONGEST BEST-OF-THREE ATP MATCHES (since 1991):
4:26—Federer d. Del Potro in 2012 Olympics SFs, 3-6, 7-6, 19-17
4:03—Nadal d. Djokovic in 2009 Madrid SFs, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6
4:00—Nadal d. Navone in 2024 Bastad QFs, 6-7, 7-5, 7-5
3:59—Shang d. Moutet in 2024 Madrid 1st Rd, 6-7, 6-2, 7-6
3:57—Tsonga d. Raonic in 2012 Olympics 2nd Rd, 6-3, 3-6, 25-23

Nadal is now through to his first semifinal in more than two years, since Wimbledon in 2022.

© 2024 Tim Clayton

There were twists and turns throughout Friday’s marathon in Bastad, starting in the first set, where Nadal battled back from 5-3 down and eventually held two set points in Navone’s 5-6 service game before ultimately dropping the first set in a tie-break.

Then, Nadal found himself three points from losing while serving to stay in the match at 4-5, 0-15 in the second set—but he dug out of that one and sent the match to a deciding third set.

Navone had an early lead in the decider, serving up a break at 2-0, 40-0, also holding a fourth point for 3-0 later in the game, but Nadal broke and eventually built a 5-2, double-break lead—Navone got both breaks back to even it up at 5-all, but that’s when Nadal made one last push, breaking at 15 and then holding at love to close it out.

Nadal is now through to his first semifinal in just over two years, since Wimbledon in 2022—and with one more win he’ll move into his first final since a few weeks before that, when he won the 22nd Grand Slam title of his career at Roland Garros.

Awaiting the former No. 1 in the semis in Bastad will be a first-time meeting against Croatian qualifier Duje Ajdukovic, who took out Brazil’s Thiago Monteiro earlier in the day, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

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Source: USA Today