King of clay Nadal defies cramp to win 11th French Open title with Paris masterclass
Spaniard battles to 11th title at Roland Garros Federer now just three majors ahead on 20 ‘It was not a normal cramping – and it was scary, because I was not in control of my finger’
As the French Tennis Federation takes a wrecking ball to Court Philippe Chatrier, starting this morning, it feels as if Rafael Nadal has outlasted the building that made him a star. As he showed in yesterday’s final, Nadal remains indestructible, even when cramp turns his racket hand into an agonising claw.
The scoreline of Nadal’s 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Dominic Thiem – which delivered a scarcely believable 11th French Open – might suggest that this match grew easier as it went on. Yet Nadal needed all his extraordinary resilience when his left hand locked up early in the third set.
In an unusual breach of protocol, Nadal walked to his chair after missing a first serve at 2-1, 30-love. He ripped off the tape around his wrist and the trainer rushed on to manipulate the hand, the fingers of which were pointing in various directions like a broken umbrella.
“It was a cramping on the [middle] finger but it was not a normal cramping,” Nadal explained afterwards. “Probably because I had the bandage here [around his wrist], it creates pressure that doesn’t allow the right circulation. It was quick in that moment, and it was scary, because I was not in control of my finger. I just went straight to my chair and tried to cut the tape.”
After a three-minute delay, Nadal marched back to his mark and completed the second half of a double-fault. Yet while Nadal’s body language would change completely for the remaining 25 minutes – his normal competitive frown relaxing into a blank, almost haunted stare – he refused to back down. He was forced to roll a few of his serves in at walking pace, because of the lack of feel in his finger. Even so, he remained utterly tenacious and focused during the rallies.
Thiem, meanwhile, became confused about how best to exploit the situation. His game plan had been to hit high to Nadal’s backhand, then open up his body and skew the next shot at an acute angle into the opposite corner of the court.
But as soon as Nadal started downing salt tablets and undergoing hand and forearm massages at each change of ends, Thiem switched tactics and looked to extend the rallies in the hope of wearing his opponent out further.
Understandable as it was, this decision only served to make him more passive. Nadal took advantage, choosing his moments to attack with a wiliness that would impress military strategist Sun Tzu.
He only dropped one more game as he completed his 86th win at Roland Garros in 2hr 42min. That span would have been shorter, had he not pushed the allotted time between points well past the official limit of 25 seconds, reaching around 40 whenever Thiem put him under pressure on his own serve.
Umpire Damien Dumusois handed out one time-violation warning but never docked a first serve. It will be interesting, however, to see how Nadal copes with the shot clock that is due to be introduced at the US Open in August. “I didn’t say anything to him [Dumusois],” said Thiem afterwards, “because I don’t ever have a watch, so I don’t how many seconds anyone is taking.”
Nadal needed five match points in a tense final game, eventually completing the job when Thiem fired a backhand long. He dropped his racket, turned towards his box and lifted his arms in what looked like relief as much as exultation.
Later, as the Spanish anthem played, he sobbed long and hard. This is not a reaction we are used to seeing from him but it revealed just how much he had invested in this clay-court season, both physically and emotionally.
Everyone else turns up at the French Open expecting him to dominate, yet Nadal is the man who actually has to deliver on those presumptuous expectations.
The victory means that Nadal now has 17 major titles, leaving him just three short of Roger Federer. Even more astonishingly, these two pillars of the old firm have now shared the past six majors equally between them.
Is Nadal upset to still be trailing Federer by three slams, despite his phenomenal feats over the past year? He turned philosopher when the question was raised.
“You can’t be frustrated always if somebody has more money than you, if somebody has a bigger house than you, if somebody has more grand slams than you. You can’t live with that feeling, no? You have to do it your way.”
In Nadal’s case, that way now leads on to the grass, where his last appearance in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon came seven years ago. He is entered into the Fever-tree Championships at Queen’s Club, starting a week today.
But will he play?
“I have to come back to speak with my team,” said Nadal, who pulled out of Queen’s in 2016 because of a serious wrist injury and last year because of exhaustion.
“Of course we will decide what’s better for my body [because] that’s the main thing always.”