French Open: Rafael Nadal – The king remains king

When the stakes are highest in Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal plays his best tennis. This was also the case in Sunday’s final against Dominic Thiem, in which the Spaniard won his eleventh title at the French Open.

He won his first French Open title as a debutant in 2005 when he was still a teenager. After the vertical start, he won again and again and again; in his twenties he became the radiant ruler of Paris, the lonely ruler. And even beyond his thirties, Rafael Nadal is irresistible in his storm and urge, in his timeless and ageless class.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, the brawny Mallorcan won his eleventh title at the French Open Championships on Sunday afternoon – passionately, but in the important moments ice-cold and highly concentrated, the 32-year-old fended off the committed attack of Austrian Dominic Thiem with his 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 victory.

The conclusion of the qualifiers under the Eiffel Tower was plain and simple: The king remains the king – and the rest of the tennis world only spectators of his fascinating reign. “It’s a feeling of great happiness and satisfaction,” said Nadal, who stretched his fists to heaven after the fifth match point and, for once, didn’t let himself fall into the sand he loved, “this victory here will never be routine.”

13 years after the brilliant premiere in his personal tennis paradise, Nadal also rebuffed the next challenger: Twelve months ago, he put the ambitious Swiss Stan Wawrinka, often called “Stanimal”, in his place – and now the Matador also showed Thiem, the Austrian powerhouse, the limits without mercy.

To defeat Nadal in Paris, especially in the heightened tournament phase, is and remains the most difficult challenge in tennis these days. “I still feel the fire, this strong will within me,” Nadal had said before his 2018 campaign, and the battle address was followed by the next, the eleventh rousing title mission.

Nadal played only one set in seven matches, against the lively Argentinian Diego Schwartzman in the quarter-finals, but otherwise he was the focal point of these Grand Slam festivities. He, the man who last year, after the historic La Decima start to the tenth triumph, was also known in the world press as “Roland Nadal”, as one who had literally merged with this major competition.

Thiem opened the clay court season on the big stages with a bang when he beat Nadal at his Masters home tournament in Madrid. However, it remained the only misstep of the indestructible fighter type from Manacor, who at the height of his sand court art has still preserved this archaic, wild and audacious attitude from his youth. Nadal on sand is a natural phenomenon, a single experience, an unstoppable force.

And Paris, the annual highlight of this special tennis discipline, is under an iron grip – with two exceptions in all these years (2009 Söderling, 2016 Djokovic). His Roland Garros testimony is 86:2, no other player and no other player in history has a comparable record at a major tournament. “You can only keep taking your hat off to him, to this show, to this mentality,” said ex-superstar John McEnroe, “as long as Nadal plays here, you can’t practically bet against him.”

With the triumph of the Spaniard, the 2018 season will also see the continued renaissance of the old Titans – namely Nadal and Federer. They have won all six Grand Slams since both of them returned to the circuit from longer injury breaks at the beginning of 2017. Nadal won the French Open 2017 and 2018 and the US Open 2017, Federer twice won the Australian Open and Wimbledon almost twelve months ago.

When Nadal completed the last slide exercises in Paris on Sunday, Federer was just getting fit for his return to the grass, he was training at Weissenhof in Stuttgart, where he made his first appearance on Wednesday. In their mutual record chase, they now have 37 Grand Slam victories: Federer leads with 20 titles, Nadal has 17 victories. Continuation of this duel: Perhaps already in Wimbledon, where Nadal and Federer start as top seeded players.

Nadal is sometimes called a “cannibal” by the Parisians. Or as “monster.” Because over the eternity of almost a decade and a half he has lost none of his greed, his drive for victory and his willpower. Thiem also felt this mental force, the player who is traded on sand as Nadal’s crown prince and who has defeated him at least once on this surface in the last three years.

However, never in Paris, where the Austrian was just as unlikely in the final as in the semi-finals in 2017. Visually, the defeat seemed more bearable than then, Thiem lost more beautiful and competitive, so to speak. But a victory was out of the question for him, also because he was much weaker than Nadal at the Big Points, i.e. in the particularly critical moments.

If you want a chance against Nadal, you must at least try to take the lead yourself. Otherwise the challenge will look even more like an eight-thousand-metre climb. Thiem was aware of this, but when he then served with a 4:5 deficit in the first set, he made several nervous mistakes under the highest pressure. The consequence: The sentence was lost. And actually much more.

Because the Lower Austrian could not really recover from this faux pas, set two went to Nadal with 6:3. And set four with 6:2, with the fifth match point after two hours and 42 minutes. One of the first to be responsible for the Nadal phenomenon also witnessed the triumph at close quarters: Toni Nadal, uncle and long-time coach of the clay court king.