Can “The King of Clay” Win His Eleventh French Open Title?
Rafa Nadal returned to the top of the world rankings after seeing off plucky upstart Alexander Zverev to clinch a record eighth Italian Open title on Sunday. It capped another phenomenal clay court season for the Spaniard, who has already won titles in Barcelona and Monte Carlo. He also broke a world record for winning the most consecutive sets on a single surface and absolutely lived up to his nickname as the king of clay. Now it is time for the big one as Nadal heads to Roland Garros in a bid to win an 11th French Open.
No man in history has ever been so dominant at a single Grand Slam. Roger Federer, who leads the all-time list with 20 Grand Slam singles titles overall, has eight Wimbledon titles. Pete Samprass has seven titles at Wimbledon, while Novak Djokovic has won six Australian Open titles and Bjorn Borg won the French Open six times. But Nadal dominance at Roland Garros is unprecedented. He is now on 16 Grand Slams overall, having won the US Open three times, Wimbledon twice and the Australian Open once, and can cut Federer’s overall lead to just three if he wins in Paris this year.
If you take a look at the spread betting markets at Sporting Index, you will see that Nadal is heavily fancied to secure another victory. He is five years younger than Federer, and could conceivably win the French Open another five times at least, so the Swiss might start looking nervously over his shoulder as his greatest of all-time tag may be under threat. Federer sits out the clay court season nowadays, in an effort to preserve his ageing body for more realistic challenges, namely Wimbledon and the US Open. Clay has never been his forte and he knows Nadal would wipe the floor with him, so he does not even try to add to his solitary French Open title.
Andy Murray, who rose to world number one in 2016, continues to be sidelined by injury problems, while Novak Djokovic has also been badly struggling with form and fitness. Nadal dispatched him pretty comfortably when they met in Italy last week. Another potential contender, Juan Martin del Potro, is also set to miss out due to a groin injury, so the pool of challengers to Nadal’s clay throne is shrinking. It really leaves two youngsters as the men most likely to depose the great man.
They are Zverev and Dominic Thiem. The latter bookended Nadal’s record breaking run of consecutive set wins by beating him in May 2017 and then beating him again in May 2018, in the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open. The 24-year Austrian is the man most widely tipped to take up Nadal’s king of clay mantle when the Spaniard finally does retire, and he is certainly a specialist on the surface. However, Nadal delivered an acerbic and somewhat terse response when asked if Thiem is his toughest challenger heading into the French Open. “Well, three weeks ago I beat him 6-0 6-3,” said Nadal. “I don’t know if that’s a tough player or not. I don’t think it’s that way.”
Thiem went to the final of that competition, but lost out to Zverev. The 21-year-old is not a clay court specialist, but he is playing brilliantly on all surfaces and that has seen him rise to number three in the world. He gave Nadal a real fright in the Italian Open final, winning nine out of 11 games to take the second set 6-1 and going 3-1 up in the final set. Nadal rallied superbly to close out a 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 victory, but he looked rattled at times, and that should give the young German confidence heading into the French Open.
However, it is worth noting that neither Zverev nor Thiem have ever made it past the fourth round of a Grand Slam. Nadal has already won 16 of them and he is a seasoned pro at Roland Garros, so it is highly unlikely that either of them will be dethroning him this year.