French Open: Far away from routine: “Rafael XI” also enjoys eleventh triumph

Rafael Nadal has shown near perfection at the French Open, even at the age of 32. Now the Spaniard has to change his game once more to the grass court season.

You might think that winning the French Open has become routine for Rafael Nadal. After all, he won there on Sunday for the eleventh time in the past 13 years. But whoever saw the Spaniard raise the trophy with childlike joy. Whoever saw him rub the tears of happiness out of his eyes. And whoever heard him rave in love about “his tournament”, who understood: Routine will never be a triumph for Nadal in Paris.

“It’s a very emotional moment for me because I came back from almost five months without a tournament,” Nadal said after his 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 final win against Austrian Dominic Thiem and said in view of his long injury break at the beginning of the year: “I’ve had many weeks of problems behind me, entered the clay court season with some doubts. He left a big exclamation mark. Proof that he is still a force of nature on his favourite surface at the age of 32.

“Rafael XI of Paris” – this is how the Spanish sports daily Marca from Madrid paid homage to the permanent champion, and AS in Barcelona wrote: “Nadal, Monsieur Roland Garros”. More is not possible for someone who once again had an almost perfect clay court season. He won 26 out of 27 matches, but was defeated only by his Paris final opponent Thiem at the Masters in Madrid.

“What he has achieved is one of the greatest things an athlete has ever achieved,” the Austrian praised him after he was without a chance again in Roland Garros. Nadal’s 17th Grand Slam title, through which he has now won more than 100 million dollars in prize money in his career, was a demonstration of power.

Tennis icon Roger Federer was almost reverent. “This is incredible. All players on the tour can only bow their heads. That leaves only the superlatives,” said the Swiss in Stuttgart on Monday: “To win a tournament eleven times at all is almost unthinkable. This is one of the most unbelievable things there is.”

But after Paris it has always been just before Wimbledon, from the sand it goes on grass. “It’s a drastic change that I found easier when I was even younger,” Nadal admitted unapologetically. The world’s top player must once again transform his game, act more variably, change his footwork completely. In 2008 and 2010 he brought this to perfection and subsequently triumphed on the holy lawn in Paris.

Nevertheless Nadal changes automatically from the role of the hunted into the role of the hunter. On the faster ground it is not a top favourite. At the grass court climax in Wimbledon, he has not made it beyond the round of 16 in the last six years, taking early failures against underdogs such as Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller, German-Jamaican Dustin Brown and Belgian Steve Darcis.

Nadal wants to take the change slowly this year. “I have to decide what’s best for my body,” he said: “I’m 32 and that’s how I feel. You can’t fight old age.” One of the driving forces behind this is the thought of his Grand Slam of the heart in Paris next year. “I will play until my body strikes,” he announced. Again, that doesn’t sound like Nadal’s winning is going to become routine at some point.