Limitless Nadal eyes return to Roland Garros next year Nadia Comaneci says Halep will be the next sports icon of Romania
NOT DONE YET The 11time champion has made a successful return from injury
PARIS: Rafael Nadal’s stranglehold on the French Open has endured so long and remains so strong that he has even out-lasted his favourite Court Philippe Chatrier stadium and will probably still be winning the title when it gets a roof in 2020.
The dust will hardly have settled on Nadal’s record-extending 11th Roland Garros title before demolition teams move in to start ripping out chunks of old concrete. Roland Garros is undergoing a major modernisation project, as have Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows, the venue of the US Open. But while the infrastructure of the world’s four Grand Slams gets constantly upgraded, the furniture at the top of men’s tennis remains bolted down.
Written off as fading forces two years ago, Nadal, 32, and Roger Federer, approaching 37, have shared the last six Grand Slam titles between them. So much for the ageing process and the new generation expected to shove them to one side.
Federer returned from a fiveyear Grand Slam drought to beat Nadal in last year’s Australian Open final, then won an eighth Wimbledon and retained the Australian title in January. Spaniard Nadal reclaimed his French Open title 12 months ago without dropping a set and won the US Open.
For the second year running Federer opted against playing at the French Open to spare his knees, but will be favourite to win Wimbledon next month and re-establish a four Grand Slam gap over Nadal on the list of alltime winners of major titles.
Not that 17-time Grand Slam champion Nadal, whose latest feat is all the more remarkable considering he was sidelined for several weeks this year due to injury, is pre-occupied with trying to keep up with his Swiss rival.
“Let me enjoy this title. I can’t be always thinking of more. Of course, I have ambition, I have passion for what I am doing, but I (Men’s singles) (Women’s singles) (Men’s doubles) (Women’s doubles) (Mixed doubles)
never have been crazy about all this kind of stuff,” Nadal said.
“You can’t be frustrated always if somebody have more money than you, if somebody have a bigger house than you, if somebody have more Grand Slams than you. You can’t live with that feeling.”
Nadal has now won three Grand Slam titles since turning 30 and only three men, Federer, Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall have managed more, having done it four times.
“You can’t fight against age and you can’t fight against the watch,” Nadal said.
After an intense claycourt season in which he suffered only one defeat in 27 matches, Nadal will take time out for fishing in his native Mallorca before the grasscourt swing. But anyone thinking he might relax having again won the tournament he says he has a “love affair” with will be wrong.
“There is no limit. You never know where is the limit,” he said. “If you don’t have the will to improve, you don’t understand sport.”
WIMBLEDON DOUBTFUL
Nadal has cast doubt on his participation at Wimbledon, saying he needs to see how his body recovers.
“Difficult for me to think about it now. I had a long and mentally tough clay court season, of course, because I played almost all the matches possible after coming from an injury. So it was a demanding two months for me,” he said. PARIS: Nadia Comaneci did not want to miss the moment, the one she hopes can reinvigorate her country.
Comaneci, the great Romanian gymnast who is now based in Oklahoma, landed in Paris on Saturday, two hours before the women’s final of the French Open, where her countrywoman Simona Halep was hoping to finally break through for her first Grand Slam title.
The top-ranked Halep made the trip worthwhile, beating Sloane Stephens 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 in front of a boisterous crowd with dozens of bright red, yellow and blue Romanian flags. “I wouldn’t miss this moment,” Comaneci said. “I’m so happy I could be with the entire stadium, all the Romanians, and everyone who was here supporting her.”
When Comaneci became the first gymnast to earn a perfect 10 at the 1976 Olympic Games, it helped propel Romania, not previously a force in the sport, to become a gymnastics dynasty for generations. The country has won 72 Olympic medals in gymnastics, nearly twice its haul of 38 in its second-most successful sport, rowing.
Comaneci, 56, said she hoped Halep would have a similar influence. “Every 40, 50 years, there comes somebody who breaks the rules, and they make history,” Comaneci said. “I think it’s great. It’s amazing for Romania, for sport in Romania, because you always have a young generation who look up to someone and say, ‘If she can do it, I can do it’.”
“I think she’s going to give a huge boost to sports in general,” she added. “The country needs that; this generation needs that. You will see a lot of little ones with rackets.”