Nadal blows away Gasquet as French have a day to forget
IN 1999 at Les Petits As Under 14 tournament in Tarbes, a cherubic French boy with a backhand to die for beat a kid from Mallorca with a loopy forehand.
Nineteen years later the players were the same but the result was very different as Rafael Nadal crushed Richard Gasquet at the French Open to continue a decade of dominance.
The No 1 seed extended his winning sequence over Gasquet to 16 matches with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win on the day the French challenge for the men’s title ended here in Paris.
There were four French players in the draw at the beginning of the day and none by the end. No 16 seed Lucas Pouille could not claw his way back after resuming at two sets down to Russian bruiser Karen Khachanov, Gael Monfils squandered four match points in a feverish and badtempered clash with David Goffin, and Pierre-Hugues Herbert was buried under an avalanche of aces from John Isner. Of all the losses for French players, the one that surprised no one was the defeat of Gasquet.
The No 27 seed has not won a set against Nadal since 2008 and has never beaten him in a completed senior match, with his only win coming when the Spaniard retired from a Challenger in Saint Jean de Luz having lost the first set.
Asked if he had considered trying anything different against the 10-time Roland Garros champion yesterday, 31-year-old Gasquet said: ‘No, I tried to play my game. It’s tough for me, because my best stroke is the backhand. With him, I’m going on his forehand. And on the diagonal, he’s just better than me.’