It's strange that, despite Rafa being Rafa and having had the easier time to the quarters, other than maybe Djokovic, you felt that Thiem could definitely win this match. If it had been another of the young guns, I'm not sure I'd have felt that way. Other than Medvedev at the moment. I won't say I knew he would. I would not have said he was the favorite just because of the seeds and Rafa having just won the US Open. BUT. I was aware that Rafa has never defended a final appearance here before. Unless you count 2012 and 2014 back to back finals where he didn't play in 2013. But mostly, we saw Goffin and Alex de Minaur beat him in the ATP cup. And I appreciated one of the commentators on my feed mentioning that Goffin used the forehand down the line really well and de Minaur learned from that and used it really well to beat Rafa. And Thiem used it well tonight. I think at the time he was saying that Thiem needed to get back to it. Not sure. I can't say I noticed that in the ATP cup matches because I didn't see much of those. Just bits and pieces while running around work. Even with that though. You know Rafa could have come out and won it. But. I wasn't worried, like I so often am, that Rafa was going to be able to come out and blitz Thiem. Even though he hasn't looked perfect this week or in Australia overall. Lost 2 sets to bolt. Lost a tiebreak to Fritz. I didn't see the Bolt match, though I saw the score when he was down 2 sets to 1. And I've missed much of most of his matches. But I've seen large chunks of the other 3. And felt good about them. And he won a set at the French final last year. That US Open epic did play into my estimation of what this one could be. And Thiem's IW win last year said a lot. Thiem wanted this match. And winning 3 tiebreaks means he could have EASILY lost it in 4 sets or 3 sets. But he eeked this one out, as all of the Big 3 have had to do over the years and Fed has had to do twice this week.
I won't say that I thought Rafa was the least likely of the big 3 to make the semis. I definitely thought it'd be Fed. And then he nearly proved me right against Millman and Sandgren. And I honestly didn't feel like he deserved to win the Sandgren match. And obviously he got more than a little lucky in both. They both struggled to close it out and he doesn't have that problem against people not named Djokovic or Nadal.
But I did think Nadal was vulnerable to not make the final. Because like I said, he's never defended a final here before. And at first because I thought Medvedev would get the better of him this time if they met each other. But Wawrinka dealt with Medvedev wonderfully. And Rafa was always gonna have to get by Thiem. Still. Thiem had to execute and he did fantastically. Really proud of him. Hoping he can back it up against Zverev.
