The embrace at the net lasted forever, but only the winner cried. Novak Djokovic’s tears would come later as he praised the man who defeated him, Juan Martin del Potro.
“He’s a great guy, a great player. He deserved to win,” Djokovic said. “But it’s not easy.”
The match lasted just two sets, but both went to tiebreakers. Del Potro closed it out with a let cord, an awkward finish to an otherwise pristine effort.
And now the 6-foot-6 Argentinian, whose forehands appear shot from a cannon, is one of the favorites going forward in the men’s singles event.
That said, why would anyone be foolish enough to make predictions?
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The chalk took a beating Sunday at the Olympic Tennis Center. Top-seeded Djokovic went down. Venus and Serena Williams lost as doubles partners for the first time in 16 Olympic matches. Equally remarkable, the Czech team that beat them — Barbora Strycova and Lucie Safarova — had never won a match together.
Andy Murray and brother Jamie lost in doubles as the No. 2 seed, and the fourth-seeded French tandem of Gael Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga got crushed by Americans Brian Baker and Rajeev Ram, who played a year at the University of Illinois.
“Pretty clean match, start to finish,” Ram said of the 6-1, 6-4 romp. “Didn’t feel like we overplayed.”
Longtime observers called it the wildest day of tennis since a crazy one in Athens in the 2004 Games.
Djokovic garners great respect throughout the game, but everyone also was happy for del Potro, a massive talent admirers call a “gentle giant,” who missed years of competition because of three surgeries on his left wrist and one on his right.
“What an amazing, amazing match for me,” he said. “I did not expect to win tonight.”
And who knows what to expect going forward?
Some will depend on which players the boisterous Brazilian fans get behind. Though Brazil and Argentina are rival nations, the fans were mostly kind to del Potro, keeping quiet before he served.
Another factor is that although the courts are hard, they are slow. “A mud pit,” one media member said.
That could favor second-seeded Andy Murray, who thrives on such a surface.
Tennis fans surely will miss Djokovic, the game’s top-ranked player. But no one could complain after a night in which the sport provided an atmosphere electric enough to power all of Barra.
Twitter @TeddyGreenstein