Nadal targets La Decima as Wawrinka faces greatest challenge of his career
Spaniard has proved to be almost unstoppable on clay I know I will be difficult to beat, says confident Swiss
The most intimidating challenge in professional sport? Cyclists might point to the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix. Or, in terms of personal safety, there is always Anthony Joshua in a boxing ring. But for sheer difficulty, it is hard to look past the task that confronts Stan Wawrinka in Paris today. Which is to beat Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros.
Nadal is gunning for “La Decima”– his 10th French Open title, which would take him into open water ahead of Martina Navratilova’s nine Wimbledons. He bestrides these courts like the minotaur in the centre of the maze.
Approaching the final confrontation, it is wise to ignore the bleached remains of everyone who went before. The odds are just too demoralising.
Coming into his latest French Open final, Nadal has played 80 matches in this elegant corner of the 16th arrondissement. He began as an 18-year-old in 2005, the season he announced himself by lifting the Coupe des Mousquetaires on his first attempt. In those 13 years, he has been beaten just twice.
One defeat came at the hands of Robin Soderling in 2009, the season when Nadal was suffering from cranky knees and the emotional turbulence of his parents’ divorce. The other arrived against Novak Djokovic, two years ago, as Djokovic rode one of the hottest form streaks in history.
Bear in mind that this sport’s great virtue is its universality. One in five people worldwide are believed to have held a racket or at least followed a player. So to establish a 98 per cent record against athletes of the quality of Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and the rest is mind-bending stuff.
Something has to give, on the principle of the unstoppable force and the immovable object. Nadal is nine out of nine in French Open finals and Wawrinka three out of three in grand slam finals.
Wawrinka is not helped by his game style. As Federer’s long struggles have demonstrated, Nadal’s lefty forehand – to which he imparts more spin than a David Beckham free-kick – is a nightmare for right-handers with singlearmed backhands. Constantly reaching up for the ball at shoulder height or more, they feel like they might as well be painting the ceiling. Nadal has come up against this brand of player 26 times at Roland Garros and not lost once.
If anyone can subvert this narrative, though, it is Wawrinka, a man with the bearlike strength to strike backhand winners off the back foot. He lost his first 12 meetings against Nadal, and was seen as a lame-duck candidate when he faced him in the Australian Open final of 2014. But when the time came on Rod Laver Arena, he swung his racket like a cleaver and powered through the grand-slam barrier. Since that day, the score is even: three wins apiece.
“It gave me my first success in a grand slam,” said Wawrinka on Friday, recalling his career-changing victory in Melbourne. “But beating him here will be very different. I think to play Rafa on clay in French Open in a final is probably the biggest challenge you can have in tennis.”
Wawrinka was speaking after his 4hr 34min semi-final, a brutal test of mental and physical resilience against world No 1 Andy Murray. Nadal, by contrast, has had an unusually comfortable draw. He has dropped only 29 games on his way to the final – the lowest figure of his career, and the secondsmoothest progress in a grand slam after Bjorn Borg here in 1978.
The contrast between the finalists’ respective records at Roland Garros is only exacerbated by the time they have each spent on court this fortnight: 15hr 20min for Wawrinka and 10hr exactly for Nadal. Wawrinka had better hope that he reaps ample benefits from the local cryotherapy chamber, which he has been visiting to accelerate his recovery.
“Mentally, it’s about switching off everything in my body except my brain which I put in winning mode,” he said. “I’m extremely confident about what I do, about how I feel, about all the hard work I have accomplished over the past days, weeks, months, years. I know that mentally when I’m there, it’s difficult to beat me.”
Yes, it is difficult to beat Wawrinka. But at Roland Garros, it is practically impossible to beat Nadal.