VIDEO | Diego Schwartzman stops game on set point to get ailing spectator help

06/06/2018

Even the best of players don’t get the opportunity to take a set off Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros and when they do, they often can’t keep their cool. Diego Schwartzman, however, realized that a spectator needed medical help and stopped the game on set point, garnering loud applause from the crowd.

Anyone following tennis even remotely knows that Rafael Nadal has earned his title as the “King of Clay”. And the King has been at his very best throughout the ongoing French Open winning 12 straight sets, with the tie breaker required only twice. In the quarters he had to face Argentine Diego Schwartzman, who had taken a set off him in Melbourne earlier this year. But not many expected the 5’7’’ Argentine to put up a strong fight on clay.

However, to everyone’s surprise, Schwartzman came out firing and had FOUR break point opportunities in the first game itself. While Nadal saved all four he was unable to do the same in the next one and went a break down. But, like the Champion that he is, Nadal, came back with a vengeance and broke the Argentine in the very next game.

But Schwartzman was in no mood to give up and broke the Spaniard twice in the seventh and the ninth game, with Nadal earning a break of his own in the eighth. Serving for the set, Schwartzman missed two set points before he saved a break-point of his own. As he took his position to serve for his third set point, he turned around and saw a spectator struggling in the stands and immediately moved to the support staff and asked them to get the person some medical assistance. As the game was stopped for two minutes, Schwartzman walked back to his mark, amidst a huge cheer from the crowd, and took a set off the King.

He went on to break Nadal two more times in the second set before the match had to be stopped due to rain.