An 11th French Open for the King of Clay

When Rafael Nadal arrived at Roland Garros 13 years ago, winning the French Open on his very first attempt, it marked the beginning of “one of the greatest acts of domination in sport”, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. Since then, the Spaniard has been widely hailed as “the greatest clay-courter of all time by some distance”. And on Sunday, he beat the 24-year-old Austrian Dominic Thiem in three sets to win the French Open for the 11th time. The one player in history who can equal that tally at a Grand Slam is Margaret Court, with her 11 Australian Open crowns; in men’s tennis, only Roger Federer’s haul of eight Wimbledon titles comes close. This year, as on so many previous occasions, no one came close to defeating Nadal: over the fortnight, he dropped just one set – the first set he had lost at Roland Garros in three years.

Thiem was the one player who had a chance of beating Nadal, said Simon Cambers in The Guardian. He is the only man who has defeated the Spaniard on clay in the past two years, with victories in Rome last year and Madrid last month. This time, however, it was barely a contest: Nadal “threw himself across the baseline, retrieving everything”. His forehand was as effective as ever; his “dazzling footwork still a marvel”, even at 32. Staggeringly, he has lost only two of his 88 matches at Roland Garros. On this evidence, who would bet against him picking up a 12th title in a year’s time?