The clock is over two laps but the game is not over yet. It’s not a final, it’s just the third round of the Miami Open 2008but Mikhail Youzhny y Nicolas Almagro They are willing to give us a memorable meeting. The level is very high, the emotion is palpable in the environment, although nobody can imagine what is about to happen. In the last blows of the third set, a ball of break wasted causes a rash on the Russian’s head. A literal eruption of blood. The tension of the moment makes him lose control and open a gap in the forehead with his racket. The image was so spectacular that he is still causing people to talk fifteen years later, timing perfect to tell in detail what happened.
Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach ‘The colonel‘, although arriving was not synonymous with success either. Have you ever heard the Russian talk about that incident? The one who is always willing to talk is Nico Almagro (Murcia, 1985), who responded to the call of break point delighted to rescue that scene and explain to us how he experienced all the controversy from the other side of the network.
“It was a very tough game from the beginning, I remember it perfectly, in the old Grandstand at Crandon Park”, points out the Murcian, who at that time was 23 years old and was number 25 in the world. “There were many options for both of us, opportunities arose all the time, but in the end what happened made me leave the game a little bitLet’s say I sinned as a newbie. That day the seniority was a degree and that is why he ended up on his side”, he comments about his rival, three years older and at that time No. 11 in the ATP ranking.
All the ingredients in the recipe came together: an open match, tough conditions and two fiery personalities. If we go to the data, Youzhny saved 17/23 break points, while Almagro saved 11/16. A duel to lose one’s head that also represented the first confrontation between these two players. “It was those typical Miami days with a lot of air, in that Grandstand built with extra bleachers, so the air was much gustier. It became very difficult to play, I think that’s why there were so many break opportunities. In the end, between the tension and everything that had happened, a limit point was reached where what happened happened”, recalls the Murcian.
But how did you get to that moment of madness? For those who want more information, there is a 10-minute video on YouTube that sums it up perfectly, highlighting some turning points during the match. For example, when Mikhail kicks off the show by throwing the racket after losing his first game of the first set. That would only be the beginning, even Almagro himself would end up later demanding that Cedric Mourier to get a warning to his opponent, who continued to combine his show of blows with that of reactions out of place. And he sees that the Spaniard was not one of the calmest in the world. tourbut that day it was the Russian who hung the gold medal.
“Mikhail was a player with a lot of characterit seemed that he was always arguing, even with his own coach, Boris Sobkin”, Almagro tells us in the interview. “ANDn that aspect we were very similar, in terms of character, which is why our games were always this intense. He had a brutal talent, an innate talent, he could do anything from anywhere on the court. If you gave him that option, then it was very difficult to recover the position, you always had to push him to the limit so that he would make unforced errors.”.
HE ‘HIT‘ OF THE PARTY
Already installed in the final set, the scoreboard invites the Spaniard to serve to win the match (6-7, 6-3, 5-4). We know how difficult it is to add that last game and this time it was no different. With a break point for the Russian, the exchange between the two tennis players ended with a harmless backhand from Youzhny that did not go over the net, so it was back to 40-40. It is then when the moment occurs that gives meaning to this article.
“I didn’t really realize what had happened, I was just trying to focus to serve. When I’m ready, I see that he is sitting on the bench with his hands on his head, that’s when I go to ask Cédric Mourier what was happening. When I get closer to Mikhail and see him is when I start to laugh, but from tension”, relates the former world number 9 about a scene that would go around the world. The Russian, frustrated at wasting that breaking ball, had hit his head on the racket frame, opening a gap from which blood would quickly begin to spurt.
“The reality is that I was a nerd, they told us that if the game stopped for ‘X’ time there would be a ‘penalty point’, and if the bleeding did not stop and it continued to bleed it would be a ‘game penalty’. If the regulations had been complied with, the game was over, it would not have been played anymore”, contrasts the Spanish, who had to wait 17 minutes! until the meeting resumed. Why was the tennis player from Moscow allowed such a delay? What explanations did they give to Spanish?
“They said that the Grandstand was very far away, which is why the physiotherapist took almost ten minutes to arrive, plus then the treatment to stop the bleeding and play again. When the years go by and you stop to think about it coldly, it is when you realize that things could have been different. Who knows, maybe the game would have fallen on my side, what will remain forever will be the anecdote, one that I will be able to tell my children”, maintains the Murcian, who, when he returned to the track, could not close the duel in his favor. Youzhny would achieve the break, force the tiebreaker and there he would get his ticket to the round of 16 (7-6, 3-6, 7-6). A 2h43min battle in which Nico finished with more points won than his rival (127-125).
NOTHING LIKE IT HAS BEEN SEEN
But let’s not put aside that outburst so soon, because it’s not every day that an alienation of this caliber is witnessed on a tennis court. Almagro, who perfectly knows the emotions that are breathed on the pitch, makes an effort to understand the Russian. “They are extreme situations that happen during the game, situations of maximum stress where you consider doing something crazy, but from there to doing it there is a world. I don’t know if he raised it, what is clear is that he did”, assures the champion of 13 ATP titles.
Fifteen years later, that image will continue to make people talk every time the calendar stops in Miami, although for its protagonists there was never a moment to comment on it. “To this day we maintain a good relationship, but we never got around to commenting on that topic, not even that day he wanted to comment on it. It is a match that will be marked in historyof course, at least I have not seen any other player who splits his head with his own racket during a game”, Almagro comments in Punto de Break, confessing that very few people remember who ended up winning that match. “After everything that happened, the winner is the least of it. That match will be remembered for that moment.”
