Nadal survives teen phenom Zverev to reach Indian Wells quarters

The problem with the future, a famous aphorism goes, is that it keeps turning into the present.

Rafael Nadal was watching future turn into present Wednesday evening in Indian Wells, as ascendant 18-year-old Alexander Zverev pushed the three-time champ to the very brink in the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Masters.

Zverev was vying to become the youngest quarterfinalist at Indian Wells since Michael Chang and Andre Agassi both cracked the final eight in 1989. And he certainly had his chances. In the end, though, he couldn't quite hold his nerve, duffing an easy forehand volley on match point as part of an unprovoked third-set collapse that allowed Nadal to advance, 6-7 (8), 6-0, 7-5.

Riding a big, lashing serve and a flat, punishing backhand, the gangly teenager dictated points and forced Nadal to run through his entire defensive arsenal. Zverev led for most of the first set, but in a bit of foreshadowing, he failed to close Nadal out while serving at 5-4, 30-0.

Instead, Nadal came back to break, and the two went on to play an electrifying tiebreaker that featured brilliant shot-making and mystifying brain cramps from each player in equal measure. Zverev finally took the breaker with a devastating overhead, after Nadal had flubbed a put away at net on his own set point.

Nadal got his bearings in a hurry in the second, breaking in the first game and never looking back. Zverev was sloppy and a little too relaxed, and seemed ready to dump the set after a couple games. Nadal happily grabbed it, serving up a bagel while dropping just nine points to take the match the distance.

Zverev proved how short his memory can be, holding at love and then immediately breaking for a 2-0 lead, then rebounding from getting rebroken by breaking a nervy Nadal a second straight time. He'd hold through for a 4-1 edge, and earn a break point for a chance to take a double-break stranglehold on the deciding set. Nadal held.

Serving for the match at 5-3, Zverev again went up 30-0. Again, Nadal managed to level things up. But an unreturned first serve set up match point, and Zverev promptly got well ahead, moving forward as Nadal hit a desperation backhand runner from the corner. He got to the ball just in front of the service line, perhaps further back than he would've liked, but still with plenty of time and three-quarters of the court open to him. Bupkis.

This missed opportunity, the young Zverev could not get over. He proceeded to dump consecutive forehands into the net, gifting back the break to an energized Nadal.

The rest was academic. Zverev completely capitulated, sailing groundstrokes and sending second serves spinning 10 feet long. He won just one point the rest of the way, looking despondent and close to tears as he made his slow walk to the net.

Asked afterward what happened, he didn't mince words. "On match point, I sucked, so that was it," Zverev said. "I missed probably the easiest shot I had the whole match. That's what happened."

Nadal likely recognized how lucky he was to escape. He surely knew he'd been granted a gift by a precocious powerhouse who got overwhelmed by the moment. But after all the agonizing defeats he himself has suffered in the past several months, he also knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth.