Winning Is a Real Pain in the Neck for Nadal

It may have been the first time a French Open match was stopped by a banana.

And no, Rafael Nadal didn’t slip on a peel.

The defending French Open champion apparently hadn’t fully swallowed a bite of a banana and felt a strange sensation in his throat in the middle of the final game of the third set. He stopped play, pointed to his neck, and a trainer and doctor came to his courtside seat to assess the situation.

You could just see the headlines: Platano Stops Clay-Court Streak at 55.

Usually, Nadal is the one making his opponents choke. But the banana was only a short-term problem. Nadal’s third-round opponent, Paul-Henri Mathieu of France, and his fervent supporters turned out to be a longer-lasting concern before the second-seeded Nadal battled through the marathon, winning, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, in 4 hours 53 minutes.

Two important numbers flipped over for Nadal on Saturday. His streak of consecutive clay-court victories hit 56 matches and he turned 20.

The Spaniard has a special way of celebrating his birthdays at the French Open, considering that he defeated Roger Federer in the semifinals on June 3 last year.

“I’m so happy,” said Nadal, who will next play Lleyton Hewitt. “I don’t need anything more.”

A spot in the fourth round was enough.

“I knew this would be a tough match,” Nadal said. “For me, as far as I’m concerned, this is the best match he has ever played against me.”

Mathieu holds the distinction of being the last man to defeat Pete Sampras on the tour, but he has suffered some crushing defeats on French soil, most notably losing the decisive match in the Davis Cup final against Russia in 2002 after winning two sets.

He thought the banana incident was “strange,” in particular the timing.

“I mean, [it] is difficult to talk about the rules,” Mathieu said. “For my part, I think you have to wait at least [until] the end of the game to receive your treatment, not during the game at 15-15, 5-4 in the third set. I mean, this is tough.”

Nadal said he started to feel frightened when he realized something was wrong.

“But I didn’t want to stop in the middle of the game,” he said. “I didn’t think it would look very good. I lost the next point. I was paying more attention to my throat than to tennis.

“It was an important game, so I started being nervous. It’s not that I couldn’t breathe, but I did feel a very strange sensation. I thought, I’ve got to stop because I don’t want anything serious to happen. Never mind if I don’t look good.”

The Nadal-Mathieu match went so long, it affected the schedule. The first set alone lasted 93 minutes, and once the match approached marathon status, officials decided to move the match between James Blake and Gael Monfils of France to Court 1.

And so, the eighth-seeded Blake remained to play another day because they were able to get in only two sets before darkness. Monfils won the first set, 6-2, and Blake took the second, 7-6 (2). Blake urged the chair umpire to stop the match around 9 p.m., telling him: “I’m saying there’s no point.”

Fourth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia will have to endure unfinished business overnight, though he was closer to the finish line than Blake. Ljubicic, playing Juan Monaco of Argentina, led, 4-2, in the fifth set when their match was halted.

There were no such problems for the women. Gisela Dulko of Argentina defeated Shenay Perry, 6-1, 6-1, in the third round, meaning No. 11 Venus Williams and Blake are the only remaining Americans in singles play.

The only upset on the women’s side was the departure of sixth-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia, a finalist here in 2004. Nineteen-year-old Shahar Peer of Israel defeated Dementieva, 6-4, 7-5, by rallying from 1-4 deficits in both sets.

Peer has won three titles, including two during the clay-court season. Next she will play No. 12 Martina Hingis of Switzerland, who defeated Ivana Lisjak of Croatia, 6-1, 6-1.

Earlier in the tournament, Peer asked a couple of reporters during an interview session not to tell her about her future draw.

“I just know whoever I play and I don’t know the next round,” she said. “I don’t like to look at draws. Always. If I know who I’m playing the next round then I’ll think about it too much. It’s better not to know.”

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At a glance

Saturday at the French Open:

Top men’s seeded winners: No. 2 Rafael Nadal, No. 14 Lleyton Hewitt.

* Top men’s seeded losers: No. 11 Radek Stepanek, No. 15 David Ferrer, No. 22 Dominik Hrbaty, No. 23 Tommy Haas, No. 27 Olivier Rochus, No. 29 Paul-Henri Mathieu.

* Top women’s seeded winners: No. 2 Kim Clijsters, No. 5 Justine Henin-Hardenne, No. 10 Anastasia Myskina, No. 12 Martina Hingis, No. 13 Anna-Lena Groenefeld, No. 15 Daniela Hantuchova, No. 31 Shahar Peer, No. 32 Gisela Dulko.

* Top women’s seeded losers: No. 6 Elena Dementieva, No. 19 Ana Ivanovic, No. 20 Maria Kirilenko, No. 21 Nathalie Dechy, No. 26 Anabel Medina Garrigues.

* Suspended matches: No. 8 James Blake and No. 25 Gael Monfils were tied at a set apiece when play was stopped because of fading light; No. 4 Ivan Ljubicic led unseeded Juan Monaco, 4-2, in the fifth set.

* On court today: Roger Federer, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Amelie Mauresmo in fourth-round matches.