Rafael Nadal went down to Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller in an epic Wimbledon fourth round match on Monday. The two-time champion was beaten 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 15-13 – his fifth exit before the quarter-finals in his last five visits to Wimbledon.
“It was not my best match against a very uncomfortable opponent,” said Nadal, the 2008 and 2010 champion. “Well done to him. He played great, especially in the fifth set but I fought to the last ball.”
The match lasted four hours and 48 minutes and was first watched with bated breath, then hailed across social media. The tweets came fast and flying as Nadal and Muller throw the kitchen sink and the rest at each other. The 34-year-old Muller was trending ahead of Nadal in India, as people praised his Zen-like calm.
Here’s the the match, described with the best tweets from the end of Manic Monday.
Nadal’s day started with a bit of a bump...
And then moved on to a bumpy ride of a match
Everyone was watching, with bated breath
Some seen never before things happened
And when the epic finally came to an end, it was a moment to remember
And then there were the inevitable jokes about the very, very long match
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