Tennis Shockwave: 20 Year Old Lucky Loser Luca Nardi Pulls Off Monumental Upset Against Novak Djokovic (-5000) In The 3rd Round Of Indian Wells
I think we've all grown accustomed to Novak Djokovic figuring out a way to win these kind of matches against young underdogs who come out on fire. Make that anyone for that matter. At some point he gains an edge and flips the script in his favor. Even when facing match point I'm programmed to assume he'll pull a rabbit out of his ass. Guy is a fucking sorcerer and I'm sick of it.
Well, 20 year old Luca Nardi said the hell with that. The young Italian strolled into the 3rd round of Indian Wells facing the world no. 1 and absolutely took it to him. This was a masterpiece from the kid and gave us watching some great theater on our TVs.
He beat Novak with finesse.
He beat him with ripped backhands down the line.
And he beat him with speed and power from his giant forehand. Constant 95+mph forehands just blistering the court.
This was a fucking masterclass from the kid. He never stopped coming, even despite Novak seemingly gaining back control in the 2nd set. Luca Nardi was fearless. Almost too young to even realize what he was in the process of doing.
He entered this match 4-12 on the ATP tour. Lost in the qualifiers of this tournament and was that close to going home before getting granted a lucky loser spot (goes to players who lose in final round of qualifying after a main draw player withdraws). Motherfucker lost to someone named Ramkumar Ramanathan, who's ranked outside the top 400, just a few weeks ago in a challenger event. And here he is beating Novak Djokovic at a Masters 1000. Novak went off as a -5000 favorite. Just madness.
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There's something about Italians and Novak right now going on. Over the last 12 months the country of Italy has 5 wins over Djokovic. The rest of the world has 4. They've got some kind of formula going on that he has yet to figure out. Send that shit out to the rest of the world like they did in Independence Day when they found how to finally destroy the space ships.
P.S. You may wonder what that conversation at the net was after the final point. Early on in the match as Novak faced a break point, Nardi thought a second serve was long and thus a double fault. Confused, he seemingly stopped playing the point, and barely hit the ball back over the net. No automated call was made so Novak reacted confused himself. Nardi went onto win the point and break causing Novak to lose his mind on the umpire.
He seemed to want a hindrance call which is used when a player makes a distracting sound on the other side. Nardi never said a word so there was no need for that. Right call by the umpire, Novak was wrong. I assume he was apologizing there, but who knows.