Midwest Sports Fan Blog

It took four sets (6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5) played over two days because of an 18-hour rain delay for Rafael Nadal to win his 7^th French Open Title, the most anyone has ever won on clay. Bjorn Borg was the previous record holder with 6 French Open titles but this cemented Nadal to being the best player in the world on the red clay.  World number one Novak Djokovic was in his first ever Roland Garros Final looking to complete his career grand slam by beating Nadal. He had beaten the Spaniard in the previous three grand slams (Wimbledon, The USOPEN and The Australian Open) but has never beaten him in Paris. He made a strong effort in the third set winning 6-2, including winning eight straight games against the red clay expert but then the match had to stop because of the rain. After already leaving the court because of the rain earlier in the third set, Djokovic was up a break at 2-1 before the tournament director came out a second time to stop the match completely. The rain was falling so hard that the court was too wet to continue so the match would not start up again until the following day, something Nadal was thrilled to hear. Being someone who loves the clay, Nadal was clearly frustrated during the third set because he was yelling and showing emotions he usually does not show. But nonetheless both players had the entire night to think about how to play come Monday morning.

Once play resumed though all of the momentum went back to Nadal, with Rafa breaking Djokovic’s serve in the opening game to put the match back on serve. Both players played strong for the next few games, not giving each other break points until Nadal was up 6-5 on serve in the fourth set. At 30-40 Djokovic serving, Djokovic double faulted to give Nadal his record breaking 7^th title at Roland Garros. With the ranking points earned by getting to the final Djokovic will still remain as world number one, and Nadal will not move back to world number two. If Nadal lost this match he would have dropped to number three because he won this tournament last year. But everything is back where is should be, and with Wimbledon, the Olympics and the USOPEN all just around the corner the top three players on the men’s side will look to defeat each other for more grand slam victories, while the world number four Andy Murray looks for his first ever grand slam. With the rest of the summer still up for grabs, only one thing remains certain, with his 52-1 record at the French Open, Rafael Nadal is the best player ever on the red clay in Paris.