Rafael Nadal had his longest match ever at the US Open on Tuesday, and he eventually emerged victorious over Dominic Thiem. The match lasted four hours and 49 minutes and did not conclude until 2:04 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Naturally, Nadal was exhausted following the quarter-final win. ESPN captured that perfectly in a triumphant photo of the 32-year-old.
Rafael Nadal is the Greatest Tennis Player of all Time. The title is his. Not Djokovic, not Sampras, not Connors, not Agassi, not Borg, not Lendl, not Roger Federer. #USOpen18 pic.twitter.com/2qCIn1AwLo
— Christofer Horta (@chris_horta) September 5, 2018
Nadal lost the first set to Thiem 6-0 and then came back to win the match in five sets. We saw a similar shot ESPN captured of Juan Martin Del Potro after he defeated Roger Federer a year ago, and we can only imagine how both Nadal and Thiem felt after battling for nearly five hours.
