Nadal survives Gojowczyk test, to meet Monfils in title clash

By Satya Rath/Doha  German qualifier Peter Gojowczyk had asked for Rafael Nadal’s autograph the only time they met before, in the locker room of last year’s US Open in New York. Yesterday, playing his first-ever tour semi-final at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open here, Gojowczyk showed he had moved on. He didn’t ask for the world No 1’s signature again, he went much, much further — he snatched the opening set from Nadal! The shake-up was enough to stir up the Spaniard, a 2010 finalist here. He never gave Gojowczyk another chance, and bulldozed through the next two sets (4-6, 6-2, 6-3) to end the qualifier’s dream run and storm into his second final in Doha in six attempts. Nadal will meet feisty Frenchman Gael Monfils — who ended the giant-killing run of rising German Florian Mayer 6-3, 6-2 in the second semifinal — in today’s final. Monfils trails Nadal 2-8 in head-to-head clash, but what would be interesting to note is that both those wins have come here in Doha (2012 and 2009). If one thought it would be a cakewalk for Nadal, he might not have believed his eyes had he seen the scoreboard after the first 12 minutes. Even before the packed centre court crowd could settle down in their seats, Gojowczyk had sped to a 3-0 lead, holding his serve in the first and third and breaking Nadal’s in the second.  Nadal clawed back to make it 3-3, after breaking the German’s serve in the fifth. The battle went on serves thereafter till the 10th, where Gojowczyk got the decisive break with a barrage of backhand down-the-line winners to pocket the set (6-4) in 43 minutes.  Could David slay the Goliath? Not just the crowd, even Nadal himself looked dazed for a while. Could David slay the Goliath? Suddenly, everything looked possible. Nadal, perhaps, just needed that rude push to come back to life. He came out all guns blazing, and it was now Gojowczyk’s turn to bear the brunt of the relentless Mallorcan’s fury.  The second set followed in a similar pattern, but the other way round. The German was broken in the first and third game, as Nadal took just 36 minutes to take the set and draw parity. Nadal broke through again in the first game of the decider, but was broken right back. Gojowczyk’s joy was shortlived though, as he was broken again in the third, and then in the ninth to bring an end to the one-hour 59-minute battle. In all, Nadal hit 26 winners to Gojowczyk’s 14, and committed just one double-fault to the German’s five. But what worried him were his unforced errors, a whopping 33 of them. “I have to play much better if I need to win the final. This is simply not acceptable. He played really great, but in my opinion I made things easy for him. That’s a negative thing, something I have to analyse. The positive thing is, I am in the finals in the first week of the season without arriving here with big preparation, without playing my best,” said Nadal after the match.  ‘Best week of my career’ Gojowczyk was happy in defeat. “I’m very happy because I won the first three games. Rafa was like, ‘Oh, what’s going on!’ I think. I felt a little bit tired in the second and the third, so it was tough for me, yeah. Anyways, I think it was my best week of my career so far. I hope I can learn from it and keep going this way. I have to fly this night to Melbourne direct. I have to play the qualifiers there on Wednesday. I hope to give my best there, and plan to come back here again.” Monfils, who is into his third Doha final but is yet to land a first title here, has come this far without dropping a set. He looked in sublime touch against the hard-hitting Mayer, with a 76 percent success rate on his first serve. But he realises all that counts to nothing against Nadal. “I am happy to have made the final. It will be tough against him (Nadal) but I am prepared,” the Frenchman said.