He has the kind of physical presence, unbreakable will and warrior spirit that would have made him a champion in whatever sport he chose. Nadal chose the gladiatorial, one-on-one, fight-to-the-death, energy-sapping sport of tennis. That he happens also to be blessed with glowering good looks and a boy-next-door charm has ensured the status of superstar.

So Nadal’s absence from the courts, from the big-time draws and from the rivalries that have made men’s tennis one of the most compelling sports of the last decade, has become the unexpected talking point of 2012.

A year that started with questions about Roger Federer’s prospects of ever winning another Grand Slam, about Andy Murray’s hopes of ever winning one Grand Slam, and about Novak Djokovic’s chances of winning the complete Grand Slam, has ended with the focus squarely on the fourth of the top quartet.

And, with an unkind symmetry, No4 is currently where Nadal finds himself in the rankings for the longest stretch since he became No2 in June 2005.

For Nadal has not played a single match since losing a long and intense five-set battle to Czech Lukas Rosol in the second round of Wimbledon in June.

First, he pulled out of the Olympic Games, where he was to carry the Spanish flag at the opening ceremony, with what was thought to be a recurrence of the tendinitis that had intermittently affected his knees.

Then he pulled out of the US Open to continue treatment on what was now described as a partial tear of the patella tendon and inflammation of the Hoffa’s fat pad.

Then during the tournament, he revealed that he would miss much of the autumn to rest and recuperate: “I feel better after the meeting with my doctors and happy knowing that the evolution of the past weeks has been positive and surgery has been avoided. I will continue to work with the plan my doctors have established to be able to compete as soon as possible.”

Now, Nadal has shed doubt on whether his return will come before the year is out. Talking to selected media this week in Madrid, it was clear that “doubt” was the operative word.

He began with the Davis Cup final, saying to Reuters: “If things go well and I can make the final and the captain thinks I am the right person to play it, then I’ll be there. If not, I’ll be supporting the guys from afar.”

Spain will be competing for their fourth Davis Cup title in five years in less than seven weeks’ time but bearing in mind that Nadal is still undergoing intense physiotherapy and strengthening work without going near a tennis court, his chances of facing the Czech Republic—especially away from home on what are unlikely to be clay courts—seem negligible, especially in the light of other comments to the Daily Mail.

“I hope you see me in Australia. That is the biggest goal for me, to come back just before then in Qatar, but I cannot say for sure it is going to happen.

“The only thing is to recover well. I want to be 100 per cent when I come back. I don’t want to keep playing every day with doubts, not knowing if my knee is going to answer all the questions.”

That, then, was the teasing timetable—not intentional, of course, but leaving room for considerable uncertainty about when he will return.

What does seem certain, however, is that Nadal will not feature at the World Tour Finals in London despite qualifying, back in July, for the eighth straight year.

It is a title he has never won and an event that has never seen his best. Even in the year that he dominated almost from start to finish, 2010, his body simply could not carry him over the winning line. For while he revels in the clay and can adjust to the forgiving grass, the physical nature of Nadal’s game has always struggled with the unforgiving hard courts that dominate the calendar—especially in the last months.

“I think tennis is a very aggressive and demanding sport and obviously the knees suffer above all when you are playing on hard courts.

“The reality is that at the age of 26 and after a career of more than 10 years, with very good results, it has been my good fortune that my knees have not prevented me competing at the highest level for many years. I hope that when I return they don’t hinder me.”

It is, indeed, easy to forget for how many years and how many matches—more than 700 on the main tour alone—those powerful Spanish legs have pounded the world’s tennis courts.

He won his first ATP match in 2002 before he was 16 and then cut a career-announcing swathe through the year’s Futures circuit: a 37-3 winning run that included six titles and a year-end ranking of 200.

2003 was the year of Challengers—two titles from six finals—and his debut, aged 17, in Grand Slam tennis, reaching R3 at Wimbledon and R2 at the US Open. He twice beat top-10 players and ended the year at 49.

At 18, in 2004, he won the key singles rubber in Spain’s Davis Cup title-winning victory over the USA and reached two ATP finals, winning his first title in Sopot.

Still a teenager in 2005, Nadal transitioned into the big time like few others have done. He won his biggest annual tally of 11 titles, including his first Grand Slam in Paris and four Masters—in three different environments—to end the year as No2. In any other decade, he would quickly have become No1 but instead he encountered the glass ceiling of Federer and stayed in second place for more than three years.

2006 brought five titles, his first Wimbledon final and an Open Era record of 62 straight wins on clay. There were six more titles in 2007.

In 2008, he won eight, including his first Wimbledon, Olympic gold and with it the No1 ranking for almost a year. He ended the year with an ATP-topping 82 match wins and 93 matches.

The next year brought a first Australian Open title but also his first extended absence—nine weeks—with knee problems after his one and only loss at the French Open. Yet he bounced back in 2010 with possibly his finest season, winning three Grand Slams and another year stretch at No1.

Now, though, he confronted another man for supremacy as Djokovic put together one of the all-time great seasons in 2011. Even so, Nadal reached 10 finals, three of them Grand Slams, winning the French Open.

But by the end, he was weary and failed to make the semis of the World Tour Finals. It was clear that he was discontent: “We can find excuses, we can find problems for more time, but is not the moment to say that.

“Is the moment to still fight? Is the moment to say the season is over? I had good season. I’m happy for that. I’m not happy about a few things during the season. This end of the year wasn’t easy for me: That’s hard to accept. But at the same time it’s given me a little bit more goal for the beginning of 2012.”

And he did not let his fans down. First he played almost to the death in the longest Grand Slam final—five hours 53 minutes—to lose to Djokovic in Melbourne. He reached the semis of both the hard court Masters in North America though he had to pull out of Miami with a knee problem.

Back on clay, he won four titles, beating Djokovic in the finals of Monte Carlo, Rome and Roland Garros, his record seventh French title.

But trouble was brewing, though Nadal has only now revealed to what extent: “Was it a mistake to play at Wimbledon? Maybe, but when you are playing well it is hard to stop. At Roland Garros I had to play with anti-inflammatories to get through. After that I felt really bad. My practice before Wimbledon was terrible. I played the first round with injections, otherwise it would have been impossible. That doesn’t help the knee.”

It places his back-breaking—and it transpires, knee-breaking—loss to Rosol into a new light. It also explains why Nadal is being extra-cautious about a winter return.

“We’ll see how things develop in the next few weeks but my priority is to recover well: not quickly but well. Obviously as soon as possible but the main thing is to have the certainty that you are fine when you do return.”

Should he never pick up a racket again, his place in tennis history is assured. With 50 titles, 21 of them Masters and 11 Grand Slams, plus a 20-1 Davis Cup singles record, he has nothing to prove. However, tennis would lose one its most vivid flames.

There is no danger of the spark being snuffed out just yet, though: “I am 26 years old and I am confident I have plenty of years ahead.

“What I want is to recover well and to continue enjoying tennis and competition, which is what make me happy right now.”

Against all the odds and all the forecasts, two men took to Paris’s Philippe Chatrier court at their allotted time, on a third Monday at the French Open.

The question on everyone’s lips—those watching from the grass of Queen’s Club in London and Halle in Germany, and a substantial number of the French who had left Roland Garros in the rain more than 16 hours before—was whether Novak Djokovic could hold onto the momentum and the break-of-serve that he owned when he left court the night before.

It was vital that he did both, for he was trailing Rafael Nadal by two sets to one. Another lost set and his dreams of making history, of being the first person in more than 40 years to follow in the footsteps of Rod Laver holding a full set of Grand Slams, would be over—perhaps for ever.

Djokovic’s problem was that the conditions were warmer and drier, which helped Nadal to regain the composure and the vicious top-spin that drained into the sodden dust in Sunday night’s fading light.

They began where they left off, Djokovic serving at 2-1, and an early run of testing, probing rallies drew errors from the Serb arm and winners from Nadal’s. It also brought a quick break, and Nadal rubbed in his advantage with a love hold.

The Serb needed to find his game quickly to contain the aggression and the forehand of a Spaniard who, serving first, edged—no, strutted—towards the finish line.

Now, though, the rain was falling again, but could it turn the tide in the Serb’s favour? Nadal held serve to love while the referee hovered, indecisive in the face of two scowling players. There was blue sky in the distance: They would stay and play.

When Djokovic hit the 50 mark for unforced errors to give Nadal a toe-hold in the 10th game, things looked bad for the Serb, but he took the initiative with deeper and wider strikes. As the sun burst through, they reached 5-5, and the tennis at last began to sparkle.

Both found the lines, tried a touch volley, threw in a defensive lob—and for good measure, the crowd threw in a Mexican wave.

But serving at 5-6, Djokovic hit two backhands long and Nadal tensed like a coiled spring to receive the next Serb delivery. He pounded three of his biggest forehands to earn a match point and the size of the task—resisted through so many ups and downs—proved too much for the Serb. A double fault brought a sad end to one of Grand Slam tennis’s more extraordinary finals.

There had been so much at stake, so many swings of the pendulum, such dramatic changes in fortune—not least the role played by the uncontrollable hand of weather.

Had these two record-bound men continued last night, had they returned last night, had Djokovic built on his momentum, had Nadal remained angry, things may have turned out differently—but they did not.

The most resilient player of them all, the unstoppable clay magician that is Nadal, won the day and at last eclipsed the remarkable Bjorn Borg with a seventh French Open title.

And in the end, who would deny him a celebratory hour in that late-to-the-party Parisian sun?

Read Sunday’s report from Paris here

And so the rivalry of the decade headed towards perhaps its most telling confrontation.

It was here, in 2010, on France’s famous terracotta, that the dominance of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic began its run.

It was here, twenty-four months and eight Grand Slams ago, that Nadal both reasserted his claim over the Parisian clay—he lost for the one and only time at Roland Garros in 2009—and went on to win Wimbledon and the US Open. He had a career Slam at last and had only to win in Melbourne in the New Year to achieve that most rare of accolades, a complete set of Majors at one time.

But injury intervened as the winning post beckoned and he fell in the quarter-finals.

In his place came the outstanding campaign of the year as Djokovic stormed to his first Major title since winning the same trophy in 2008. He would go on to take Wimbledon and the US Open, too, but Roger Federer intervened in Paris where Nadal took a sixth French Open title.

The pendulum was firmly on the Serb’s side at the start of 2012, but the time was ripe to start its swing back to the Spaniard, as their near-six-hour battle in Australia showed. Djokovic won, just, and found himself where Federer and Nadal had already been: holding three of the four big trophies.

Now, with either the Spaniard or the Serb certain to take Grand Slam honours for the ninth consecutive time, they played one another in a fourth straight Major. And this time one or other could claim a bigger prize than any man before.

Mere mortals may have frozen in the face of such challenges: Djokovic aiming to match an achievement last set more than 40 years ago and held by one of the few in tennis history, Rod Laver, of greater standing than either man; Nadal aiming to take from the iconic Bjorn Borg the title of “greatest ever” clay player with a seventh French trophy.

Only one could succeed.

Their personal rivalry had, in itself, become hugely significant. They would face each other for the 33rd time in their 15th final. Nadal led by 18 to 14, though the tally in finals was a perfectly balanced 7-7. But the key component that disturbed their symmetry was the clay: Nadal had won 11 of their 13 meetings on the surface that fitted him like a glove. And this year, he stemmed the tide of seven losses in finals to Djokovic by beating the Serb in Monte Carlo and Rome.

Flooded with confidence, the Spaniard went on to suffer only one break of serve in Paris and lost only 35 games—the lowest number for anyone reaching a Major final since Borg won the 1980 French title.

But could Djokovic’s statistics trump him? The Serb was undefeated in 27 Grand Slam matches—including victories over Nadal in all three previous Majors.

So the pendulum was poised—and for several long minutes before play even began. Neither man wanted to wait for the other at the coin toss. Neither wanted to wait at their baseline when the umpire said “play”. Both took a few extra moments on their seats, but both times, Djokovic gave in first.

In the mind game at least, Nadal seemed the winner, and he translated that into the opening three points—big forehand winners all. An enormous cross-court strike from the Nadal backhand opened another break chance and this time he drew the error and the break.

Nadal carried the same energy into his own serve. Perhaps it was the vivid pink torso against its soft orange backdrop, but the Spaniard appeared to bristle. His tics were completed with unusual urgency in between firing a first ace and a series of baseline winners. He held to love and then shot forehand down-the-line winners past Djokovic to break a second time. It was 3-0.

All that was about to change. In an eerie replay of the Serb’s semi-final against Federer, Djokovic strung together a few longer rallies, Nadal made a few errors and, voila, it was a break back. Djokovic also held a ragged service game courtesy of another loose Nadal backhand.

Under a light drizzle, Nadal now found himself on the receiving end of improving patterns of criss-cross shots struck from inside the Djokovic baseline. The Serb hit one flat forehand after another to either wing and Nadal, thrown into defence, double faulted for a break point and Djokovic drew one more error with a backhand down the line to level, 3-3.

But the Serb’s focus, unlike when he played Federer, pulled in and out, and the pendulum began its reverse swing. Djokovic twice found the net with his backhand, and he too double faulted to give Nadal the break and a 4-3 lead.

A distracted Djokovic spent the change of ends gesticulating to his box, berating himself and unable to regain that three-game sharpness. Nadal, steady as a rock, served out the set, 6-3.

It had taken an hour, with no easy points, only one ace, and barely a drop shot or net rush in sight.

The second set again did not start well for Djokovic: He hit a backhand into the net on the opening point. Then came a wild forehand error and, finally, a double fault to hand Nadal an immediate break. Nadal toughed out deuces on his own serve to lead, 2-0.

The third game also went to deuce, as did the fourth, though this time, Djokovic made the break-through via some poor serving from Nadal. It was all square again, 2-2.

The good news for the Spaniard was that Djokovic’s first serve was even worse. The Serb held the fifth game but then, just as in the first set, Nadal put down his head, speeded up his footwork and wrenched back control.

Now the rain fell more persistently but it did not dampen the Nadal whip of a forehand. The Spaniard broke and then pounded in big serves and ground strokes to hold for a 5-3 lead before the umbrellas went up and the players went off.

For more than half an hour, the uncovered courts soaked up the rain, and the two men returned to a heavier and stickier surface than they had left—and it appeared to affect Djokovic the worse. Three errors gave Nadal immediate set points and a remarkable backhand winner on the stretch took the Spaniard to a two-set lead, 6-3.

But the third set opened as many expected the first to begin. Every point stretched the other to their limits. Nadal saved a break point with the exchange of the match thus far, a pummelling rally that left Nadal smashing a decisive winner and Djokovic slumped in despair.

It was, though, to be another déjà vu opening: Nadal made a quick break to lead 2-0 but Djokovic broke back and resisted a string of deuces to hold his own in increasingly demanding rallies. Now, too, there were signs that Djokovic was making more consistent inroads.

A bullet of a forehand down the line took the Serb to 40-0 on Nadal’s serve and the subdued crowd ignited when a forehand error from Nadal put the Serb a break up in a set for the first time. The pendulum was now firmly on his side, and his first ace affirmed a 4-2 lead.

With a spring in his step and steel in his eyes, Djokovic was at full tilt and forcing deep drives to the Nadal backhand. He took a second break and served his best game of the match, fast and focused for perhaps the first time, to take the first set of the year on red clay from Nadal, 6-2.

The skies grew ominously heavy as rain leaked more steadily onto the already-heavy court. Nadal found it increasingly hard to power through the Djokovic defences while the Serb missed barely a thing. On his opening serve of the fourth set, Nadal defended and pounded through a gruelling 44-shot rally but came off the loser and Djokovic picked off a near-impossible cross-court backhand winner to break.

Nadal started to become distracted by the state of the balls—heavy, wet and covered in clay—while Djokovic was playing his best tennis of the match, apparently unaffected. He now edged ahead of Nadal in the points tally, 94 to 93.

Eventually, an extraordinary 8-game run to the Serb was halted by an angry Nadal, serving bigger and hitting more fiercely than ever. He was a break down but only 1-2 down—but did it mark a swing of the pendulum back to the Spaniard?

The question would remain on a sodden Philippe Chatrier court as thousands of umbrellas headed to the exits. For even the might of Nadal and Djokovic could not hold off the rain: Their destinies would have to await a new day.

Read the report on the conclusion of the final here

On one side of the sun-drenched Philippe Chatrier court stood a three-time Grand Slam champion, a former and future No1, 6ft 2ins of picture-perfect elegance in both physique and dress, and the hot favourite to win perhaps the most significant title of her career: Maria Sharapova.

On the other side stood a diminutive woman of under 5ft 5in, playing the first Grand Slam final of her career, a bustling, intense package in vibrant cerise clasping a special racket, discovered by chance, that had brought her more success in 2012 than ever before: Sara Errani.

Both women were about to play their first French Open final.

They were born just 10 days apart, in April 1987, and though they had trained in Florida together as juniors, they had never played one another on the tour.

Despite the disparity in their rankings — Sharapova No2 and Errani No24 — they were two of the outstanding clay performers of the season. Both had 35 match-wins for the season, with Sharapova at 18-1 on clay — she won in Stuttgart and Rome — and Errani at 23-2 on clay — she won in Acapulco, Barcelona and Budapest.

Their routes and achievements to this first intriguing encounter were also filled with similarities and contrasts. Sharapova had already secured her rise back to the No1 ranking she last held exactly four years ago. Since then, a shoulder injury had kept her out of action for nine months and she subsequently dropped to 126. Her return, with both improved fitness and movement, had shown great application and determination — but then so had the progress of her opponent.

Errani, with a new training regime and that newly-discovered racket, was also ready to break fresh ground in the rankings: her first time in the top 10 and as the highest-ranking Italian. On her way to the Paris final, she also became the first woman in a decade to reach both the singles and doubles finals — and she bagged the latter title yesterday. And if all that was not enough to impress her impressive foe, Errani had taken out two former champions — Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova — plus two top-10 seeds — Angelique Kerber and Sam Stosur — to reach her first Major final.

Errani would not, in short, be overawed by the venue, the opponent or the occasion, nor by the ranks of Grand Slam champions looking on: Martina Navratilova, Monica Seles, Amelie Mauresmo, Lindsay Davenport, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. But the scale of the Italian’s task was laid bare in the opening minutes of the match.

Sharapova opened at full tilt, in both volume and ball-striking, to pound winner after winner past her opponent: Her down-the-line backhand was particularly venomous. She broke twice to take a 4-0 lead before Errani managed to disrupt the Sharapova rhythm, and some acute angles and deep forehands broke to 15. The Italian was on the scoreboard.

Apparently buoyed up by the break, Errani chased into the net on her own serve for a volley winner, sliced a backhand away for another and defended like a terrier to force errors from the Sharapova forehand. She pulled back the deficit to 2-4, despite more ferocious hitting from the Russian.

But so great was the pace, depth and accuracy of the Sharapova backhand in the seventh game that Errani could not get near a point, and came under more pressure, 15-40, 2-5 down. She held on by her fingernails and withstood the barrage to reach 30-30 as Sharapova served for the set but, in the end, the determined Russian simply stepped in with her killer backhand to close out the set as she had started it, 6-3.

One set down, and Sharapova was dominating with the kind of power that few women in the modern game can wield. Despite just four errors from the Errani racket, Sharapova had, in only 35 minutes, struck 19 winners to Errani’s four. She had also fired 70 per cent of her first serves into play, dropping points on just three of them. With fist clenched and head bent with icy focus, she embarked on the second set with similar intent.

Errani served with variety and accuracy but still found herself 0-40 down courtesy of three straight backhand winners from Sharapova. A fourth cannonball down the line finished the job and Errani suffered an immediate break.

Her problem was simple: She was not allowed to play her all-court, doubles-influenced, clay-suited game. Rarely did Errani have the time or space to come to the net — though when she did, she was invariably rewarded with a point. She managed it twice in Sharapova’s first service game, and reached deuce with a short, sliced forehand, but the Russian resisted to hold the 2-0 lead.

Errani, to her great credit, made Sharapova work hard every step of the way, and the demands of the Russian’s powerful shot-making forced her to slow the tempo between points to gather her breath. For while her first-strike tennis won most of the short rallies, Errani often prevailed in the long exchanges. Indeed, the Italian’s hustling defence-turned-attack tennis won exuberant cheers as she threw up winning lobs and picked off high smashes to hold her own serve.

Sharapova’s error count crept up to 20 as she faced a break point in the fourth game but, holding off the challenge, she promptly stepped in to assault Errani’s serve. With a relatively slow delivery, it was proving harder by the game for the Italian to fend off the super-charged Sharapova retorts: She was broken and 1-4 down.

Despite a flurry of winners that earned Errani a break back, Sharapova’s revenge was again swift, with another break and a 5-2 lead.

In the end, the result was entirely predictable though, much to the pleasure of the chanting French crowd, Errani went out in a blaze of glory, pulling off two glorious drop-shot winners to bring up two break point chances. The power and determination of Sharapova—along with perhaps a little destiny — quickly doused the flames and she sank to her knees for the first time on Paris’s red clay. The elusive French title was hers at last, and in truly impressive style.

This title completes Sharapova’s set of Grand Slams: She is only the sixth woman in the Open Era to manage it. And she looks ready for much more.

Still only 25, Sharapova is moving more freely and quickly than ever and is hitting with greater power, accuracy and consistency, it seems, with every passing tournament.

It is not pretty tennis but it is the kind of tennis that draws gasps of awe — a constant soundtrack to her battering of Errani—from all who see it. And it is the kind of tennis that could well take her to the first Wimbledon title since her memorable maiden Grand Slam in 2004.

Fancy a bet on the final? Open a bet365 account with £10 or more and you’ll get a free bet of up to £200.

Nadal will be aiming to surpass Björn Borg’s record and win a seventh Roland Garros title, while his Serbian opponent is hoping to become the first player to hold all four Majors simultaneously since Rod Laver in 1969.

Djokovic has shown remarkable resilience throughout the last fortnight to battle his way to the showpiece in Paris, coming from two sets down against Andreas Seppi in the last 16, before saving four match points in a pulsating quarter-final clash with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

And the 25-year-old world No1 showcased his remarkable ability on clay with a thoroughly comprehensive performance against 16-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer on Friday – and he will provide a stern test to Nadal.

The pair have met in four previous Grand Slam showpieces and in 2011′s Wimbledon and US Open finals, Djokovic won the first set on his way to victory.

Nadal, despite being in imperious form over the last fortnight, has looked at his weakest in the early part of matches, having to save break points early on against David Ferrer in the semi-final, and being taken to a tie-break in the first set by Nicolas Alamagro.

Djokovic will be acutely aware of how important it is to make a strong start if he stands any chance of upsetting Nadal in his favourite hunting ground, so the Serb to win the first set is a great price at odds of 7/4 at bet365.

Overall, Nadal holds the edge over Djokovic in terms of past meetings at Majors and ATP tour events, with 18 victories. The 26-year-old is a veteran of the orange courts, and holds a vastly superior record on clay – 11-2 in his favour.

Djokovic is worth a punt to win the first set but go on to lose his first French Open final at very tempting odds of 7/2.

The world No2 has won three titles in 2012, all on clay in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome. Djokovic has proven his heroic battling qualities throughout the tournament, and over the past year, but beating Nadal on clay in the French Open final will be one challenge too many.

Nadal to eclipse Bjorg’s record in the final, and win in four sets on Sunday is fantastic value at 5/2.

Fancy a bet on the final? Open a bet365 account with £10 or more and you’ll get a free bet of up to £200.

It was Roger Federer’s 50th straight Grand Slam, his 14th straight French Open, his seventh semi-final in Paris as he aimed for his sixth Roland Garros final.

At this year’s culmination of the clay season, he had equalled Jimmy Connors’ record of 31 Grand Slam semi-finals—though he already held the record for consecutive Major semis by a mile. He had reached 237 Major match-wins for the loss of only 35, and this year alone he had won four titles—two of them Masters—for the loss of only four matches.

Yet despite all his achievements and landmarks, the longevity and the consistency, Federer had never achieved what his opponent was attempting to do.

Novak Djokovic had in his sights the chance to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four Grand Slams at the same time, and the circumstances surrounding his attempt, in the shape of Federer, could not have been more nerve tingling.

At this very tournament and at this very stage last year, Federer had brought to an end Djokovic’s unbroken 2011 41-match run. A few months later, the Serb exacted a remarkable revenge by repeating his 2010 victory over Federer at the US Open, from match points down, again in the semi-finals.

In their 26th meeting, therefore, both sought to avenge painful defeats, and they did so on the back of dramatic, five-set quarter-final wins, achieved at almost the same time with near identical champion-style grit.

The start of their latest meeting was itself tantalising: They were introduced to the Philippe Chatrier crowd, were warmed up and ready to go, but the weather, which played its part throughout the day, sent them packing as the rain fell.

They returned, less than an hour later, to sunshine and gusting winds, and got off to a spritely start apparently unaffected by their broken preparations.

In a high-tempo opening, they struck the ball early and began to make big winners on their forehands. So fast was the gun-fire hitting that, during one rally in the fifth game, the crowd gasped through every strike. Federer concluded the same game with two outright forehand winners to break.

Already what promised to be a pot-boiler of a semi was simmering, especially when, in the blink of an eye and from a 30-15 lead, Federer hit three errors and Djokovic immediately converted a break point back.

Now the Serb decided to change the pace and rhythm by twice ghosting in behind his serve, and he easily held to love. But Federer’s serve and forehand were also rich in winners and he held, too.

So Djokovic turned his focus to the backhand and, with Federer serving at 4-5, the Serb’s eyes opened wide and he sank deep on his haunches, ready to attack. He drew the errors he sought as Federer twice over-hit to offer up two set points. A big Djokovic forehand drew one more error to earn him the set, 6-4.

The stats suggested that Federer had been the aggressor, scoring 18 winners to Djokovic’s 10, but the Serb’s consistency of placement and pace drew 17 errors from the Swiss. Djokovic, for his part, made just three errors in a set of more than 50 points.

The second set began in spectacular fashion, Djokovic streaking to a 40-0 lead on his opening serve before Federer pegged him back with the full gamut of spin and angle culminating in a 36-shot rally that showcased every shot in the tennis book, from drops to lobs to volleys—plus a tweener for good measure. One more cross-court strike from Federer’s racket made the break and he held to love for a 2-0 lead.

More gasps provided the soundtrack to the third game as Federer made a second break, but the infamous Djokovic forehand kicked in with some fearsome winners and, just as quickly, Federer was broken back to love.

With the wind at his back, Djokovic wrenched control and the tennis rushed on in near-breathless fashion. Federer failed to convert yet more break points while Djokovic took his chances to level things at 4-4.

Once more, fortunes swung and Federer took control, breaking in the ninth game with two screaming backhand winners—set-winners had he served first. But yet again, his serve, or perhaps his nerves, let him down. A double fault, a bad bounce on his baseline, an over-hit backhand and a couple of scowls later, and Federer was once more facing break points. Another rash forehand sailed out by a mile and Djokovic, against the odds, had taken the second set, 7-5.

Now the skies turned gun-metal grey to match the bruise-dark shoulders of Federer. The Swiss may have wondered, just as many of those watching must have done, how he had lost two sets in which he had taken early control, how he had led the second for most of its 50-plus minutes and served to level the match, yet found himself two sets down for the second successive match in the tournament.

He may have thought briefly of that quarter-final against Juan Martin del Potro but, if he did, he would have admitted that he had then faced a steadily weakening opponent. This was different.

This time, instead of a streak of wins over the man across the net, Federer carried a streak of five losses from his last six matches against Djokovic, not least a confidence-swelling victory to the Serb in Rome just last month. But with Federer now winning only 40 percent of points from his first serve—a sign both of his own floundering performance and of Djokovic’s pouncing, deep returns of serve—this was an uphill task of the first order.
With his man on the ropes, and that Rome confidence flooding his bloodstream, Djokovic never looked in danger again.

Federer tried, too late, a variation to his unexpected baseline tactics. In the first game of the set, he played a first serve-and-volley point. He tried to attack the net on the Djokovic serve, too, overhit the volley and dropped back again. With his first serve percentage now below 50, such options were, though, few and far between.

As the Federer error count reached 40 to Djokovic’s 13, the Swiss body language also turned dark, and when two more forehand errors handed Djokovic the vital break for a 4-2 lead, the Federer expression became still more sombre. He managed one last hoorah, holding serve in the eighth with a delightful lob, but minutes later, Djokovic, never losing concentration for a moment, closed out the set and match, 6-3, for one of his most convincing wins over one of his greatest rivals.

Federer afterwards summed it up simply: “I ran into an opponent who was just better today…I had enough chances so it’s no excuse there. I tried and it just didn’t work out.”

And it has not worked out, in Grand Slams at least, for more than two years. Since the Australian Open in 2010, every Major has gone to Rafael Nadal and Djokovic. And in Paris, this Sunday, it will be the same two who fight it out for their place in history. Either Djokovic will win that most prestigious of accolades, a straight run of all four Slams, or Nadal will take a record seven Roland Garros titles.

Watch this space…

Fearless Ferrer falls to fearsome Nadal again

In physical stature he may not be the most gifted: 5ft 9in falls rather short for the ideal tennis player.

But David Ferrer is a man who has not only made the most of every vertical inch but may be the closest thing in tennis to the coiled-spring energy of his friend/foe/compatriot/thorn in the side, Rafael Nadal.

Not for nothing has Ferrer drawn epithets such as “road-runner”, “terrier” or “iron-man” but, as he said this week, it is the last of them he favours:

“I’m not a big fan of “warrior” or “gladiator”. I think they’re a bit simplistic, and not really my style. However, I do like “Ferru.” It’s a mix of my name and the word for iron in Spanish. It means I’m resistant.”

The resilient 30-year-old Ferrer struck the top five in 2007 but considered retirement in 2010 when wins seemed harder to come by and he slipped outside the top 20 for the first time in almost five years. But the iron in the man took him instead to his first Masters final in Rome and then, in 2011, two more Masters finals and only his second Grand Slam semi-final.

Back to the top five by the end of the year, he carried his new-found confidence through Spain’s Davis Cup victory and on to three titles from four finals in 2012. Now, at his 10th attempt, he had reached his first ever Roland Garros semi.

But through his entire career, it has been Ferrer’s curse to stand in the shadow of the younger, taller, stronger and even more resilient Nadal. Nineteen times they had played one another and, in 11 of their last 12, victory had gone to Nadal. Only once, eight years ago in their first ever meeting, had Ferrer beaten him on clay in Stuttgart.

So many times Nadal had deprived his compatriot of a chance for glory—five time in Barcelona, three times in Rome, three times in Monte Carlo—but not since 2005 had they met at Roland Garros. That encounter went Nadal’s way just as both their 2012 meetings had—and there was little to suggest the outcome would be any different in their 20th match.

Nadal’s three clay titles in 2012—Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome—had come without the loss of a set, and in Paris the closest he had come to a dropped set was a single tie-breaker in his quarterfinal. Keeping a clean sheet, he went on to record his 50th win on Paris’s clay.

However, Ferrer opened serve strongly, taking the opening game to love in just two minutes. It took another seven minutes before Nadal levelled, forced to defend deuce twice. Both showed how key the forehand would be in taking control of the rallies, and it was a deep, penetrating forehand, finished with a volley winner, that gave Ferrer the first break point of the match. Another forehand earned him a second, but Nadal harried the harrier at the net to hold.

Serving with the wind at his back, Ferrer now faced an opponent growing accustomed to the blustery conditions, and the longer rallies began to go in Nadal’s favour: Four in a row yielded a love break of serve.

With the first strike against serve, Nadal cranked up nine points in a row and the defensive talent of the reigning champion also began to blossom.

Ferrer continued to pound at Nadal’s backhand wing but to no avail. Coming under increasing pressure, he made his first double fault to concede a second service game to love and Nadal served out the set, 6-2.

With Nadal in deep rose pink, Ferrer perhaps felt that he also needed some dazzle in his shoulders. He came into the second set with a change from white to shocking pink and seemed to rediscover the vigour in his right-arm that had started the match so strongly.

However, by the third game, history was repeating. Ferrer did little wrong but Nadal was not for passing. The rally of the match, a 30-stroke spectacular, saw Nadal retrieve a drop-shot on his backside and follow it with an inch-perfect lob that a scuttering Ferrer returned but to no avail. That brought up break point and Nadal pressed home his advantage to force one more error from his hapless compatriot.

With the No2 seed leading 3-1, the iron-grey clouds began to descend over Philippe Chatrier. A gloom descended on Ferrer, too, and errors started to flow along with the rain.

The two men left court with Nadal already two breaks to the good, and an hour later, he carried on from where he had left off. The second set was quickly Nadal’s, 6-2, without a single point dropped on his first serve and only four unforced errors to his name.

Again in the third, it was Ferrer who opened serve but this time he faced break points right from the start at 0-40 down, and a desperate, over-ambitious backhand down the line conceded the game.

Now Nadal was finding the lines with ease, changing direction at will, picking up volleys and returning wide balls to his backhand with interest.

Again in the fifth game, Ferrer faced two break points and a sorry double-fault took Nadal to an insurmountable 4-1 lead. A ripping forehand winner down the line took the next game and a searing cross-court forehand took one more to close out the match, 6-1.

The celebration was muted in the face of a downcast Ferrer, but the nature of Nadal’s win still begged one important question.

Now within a single match of a record seventh Roland Garros title, could one of his remaining foes—be it Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic—stem the tide of the king of clay?

Djokovic seals Parisian revenge over Federer

Perhaps only the most prescient of tennis experts would have predicted the last four women standing in 2012’s French Open, but two of them in particular had special incentives to drive them towards the last match.

For Maria Sharapova, a final finish would reclaim the No1 ranking for the first time since June 2008 and a chance, should she go on to win the title, for the career Grand Slam.

For Sara Errani, a win would see her break the top 10 for the first time in her career and see her overtake the Italian woman who reached the last two finals in Paris, Francesca Schiavone, and become the top player in her country.

So for the petite, charismatic Errani, perhaps more than for the other three contestants, this was the biggest match of her career: She had never before played a Grand Slam semi-final. Indeed not until this year’s Australian Open had she gone beyond the third round of any of the 18 Grand Slam singles draws she had played.

But in Melbourne, with a new, untried, unsponsored racket in her hand, she reached her first quarter-final, and thereafter had not looked back. Starting the year at No45, she rose through 2012 to 24, but even that did not do justice to her performance since the discovery of her tennis-transforming racket. In the race, she was already ranked No9 with three singles titles—and for good measure five doubles titles—to her name.

All her singles success had come on clay—Acapulco, Barcelona and Budapest—but she had not beaten a top-10 player in any of them. Come Paris, though, she beat No10 Angelique Kerber in the quarters and, just as impressive, beat two former French champions on the way: Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Now she confronted an even higher seed. Sam Stosur had not just beaten her in the second round of Rome this year but in all four previous meetings too.

The contrasts were many and compelling. Where Errani trod new ground, Stosur was both a reigning Grand Slam champion—at the US Open—and also a finalist at Roland Garros in 2010.

Where Errani was a bustling, bouncing bundle of muscle as adept at the net as the baseline, Stosur was the elegant powerhouse with a serene demeanour, able to unleash one of the most powerful forehands and formidable kicking serves in the women’s game.

Where the petite, barely 5ft 5in, Errani voiced her effort with every strike—a deep-throated grunt not unlike her Fed Cup associate Schiavone—the taller Stosur was a silent assassin, making little more than a sigh at each serve.

In rankings, too, they were as a mirror: Errani at No8 in doubles but just 24 in singles, while Stosur stood at No6 in singles and only 40 in doubles.

Even in dress they opposed: Errani in cerise from head to toe, Stosur in black with just a trimming of hot pink.

Despite the heavy conditions created by an afternoon rainstorm, Stosur asserted her power by breaking in the opening game, but Errani quickly broke back, and they stayed on level terms with both women firing big, kicking serves and finding deep baseline corners.

Not until 5-5 did either woman gain another break point, and then there were three of them—all Errani’s. The Italian changed things up with a couple of drop shots and ballooning topspin forehands, and forced an error from Stosur on the third. Against the odds, Errani took the lead and served out the set with no sign of nerves, 7-5.

Things looked even more worrying for Stosur at the start of the second set, with huge hitting from Errani earning her a break point in the first game. The Australian, though, stepped inside the baseline and let her forehand do the talking. She ran down a couple of drop shots with impressive speed and held.

It was a strategy that saw the Australian’s a growing tally of winners eventually begin to outweigh her errors. Having taken 10 minutes to hold her opening serve, she began to rush the net as often as her opponent and was rewarded with a quick break of the Errani serve. But unlike the first set, Stosur kept her foot down and she broke again with a cross-court forehand winner reminiscent of Novak Djokovic, and ran through the set for the loss of just one game, 6-1.

The third set saw both women trying to claim the upper hand from inside the baseline. It was feisty, big-hitting stuff, both going for the lines, both willing to attack the net. In the first game, the nerves that have so often plagued Stosur’s game seemed initially to haunt her. She went 0-40 down and was broken as she sprayed errors around Philippe Chatrier. In what seemed like moments, she was 3-0 down. She came back at the Italian in fine style, though, to break Errani with a backhand down-the-line winner.

Errani, in turn, found some courageous shot making, including a forehand drop shot to earn another break point in the sixth game. Stosur remained aggressive to hold, but in the eighth, it was a different story. Now pummelling deep to the Stosur backhand, Errani drew growing numbers of errors—21 for the final set alone—while she herself defended superbly to make a decisive break through.

Now with a 5-3 advantage, the Italian threw herself headlong at her first Grand Slam final and her first top-10 ranking: She hammered a winning forehand winner to take set and match, 6-3.

It was a weeping, disbelieving Errani who gazed at her cheering box after a performance—and a tournament—that was as inspiring as it was unexpected.

Less unexpected, though just as inspiring, was that Errani has to return to court to play the doubles final in Paris, as well, but surely her heart will be fixed on the solitary title that her countrywoman won in 2010.

But if Errani’s challenge was great against Stosur, it was about to become greater still. She will face the woman aiming to write her own history and already guaranteed to be next week’s No1.

Sharapova had sailed in untroubled fashion to her semi-final against Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova. Not only had she seen her biggest rivals, Serena Williams and Caroline Wozniacki, fall ahead of her meetings with them, she had dropped fewer than five games in all but one match. But regardless of her 16-1 clay record during 2012, it was to Kvitova that Sharapova lost in last year’s Wimbledon final, and both victories over the Czech this year had been very hard earned. So most expected that this match, too, would be close.

And Kvitova came out strongly, despite strong blustery conditions, to hold serve. In the difficult conditions, Sharapova faced a break point in her opening game, but she resisted and swiftly applied pressure to Kvitova in what was already a slugfest from the baseline.

Again, Kvitova earned a break point, but Sharapova held and began to find her range and some fearsome focus. Her powerful returns of serve brought up three more break points, and Kvitova conceded the first. Making just five winners to Sharapova’s 12, the Czech was broken again to love and the Russian took the opener, 6-3.

The most impressive improvement in the Sharapova game has been her movement around the court: That was very clear in the defence of her Rome title. She defended strongly and picked up the wind-affected balls far better than her opponent, and when she broke in the third game, it looked all over.

Whether it was down to the conditions is hard to say but Kvitova, despite her proven net skills, resisted attacking the front of the court, apparently in thrall to the baseline power and rhythm of her opponent. She did manage to break back to level at 3-3 but, in a flurry of errors, she was broken again and Sharapova advanced with surprising ease to her first French Open final in her third semi-final appearance.

It was not pretty stuff and failed to engage the Paris crowd as much as the star appeal of Sharapova might have expected. But if Errani, fleet of foot but giving away 9ins to the willowy Sharapova, can replicate the all-court skills, top-spin power and talent for retrieval that has got her this far, the final should be enthralling indeed—particularly with such special incentives on the line.

Juan Martin Del Potro admitted a drop in intensity cost him a place in the French Open semi-finals after the Argentine was beaten 3-6 6-7 (7-4) 6-2 6-0 6-3 by Roger Federer on Tuesday.

The ninth seed produced a swashbuckling performance in the opening two sets which mirrored his US Open final triumph over the 16-time Grand Slam champion in 2009.

But Federer finally gained a foothold in the match as Del Potro’s serve, which had been so impressive in the initial 80 minutes of play, crumbled and the world No3 levelled the last-eight encounter at one set all.

Del Potro was hampered by a heavily strapped left knee as Federer fought back set up a semi-final clash with top seed Novak Djokovic as he looks to win the French Open for the second time.

“I think I played a great match, even the third and fourth set,” said Del Potro.

“He started to play much better than in the beginning of the match and I feel his ball more in the baseline. He put me to run a lot in the third and fourth set.

“He played better than me after the second set. I didn’t have any chance to win [a game] until the first game in the fifth set when I had break point. He took the opportunity in the fifth set and he won.

“I didn’t serve well, and this is why I lost intensity in my game. Let me say that again: Federer played much better.

“I had to make efforts to serve better, and he did everything so that my serve was not as good as I wanted it to be and I couldn’t take my chances.

“I had opportunities. I missed them; when he had opportunities he won, and that made the difference.”

Novak Djokovic admitted Jo Wilfried-Tsonga would have been a “deserving winner” after the world No1 saved four match points to triumph 6-1 5-7 5-7 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 and reach the French Open semi-finals.

The Serb raced into a one-set lead in a blistering 21 minutes, before Tsonga, seeded fifth at his home tournament, mounted a comeback to claim back-to-back sets as his opponent faltered.

Djokovic saved four match points in the fourth set to force a tie-break – and the world No1 triumphed 8-6 as Tsonga’s momentum came to a shuddering halt, leaving Djokovic to take the decisive set 6-1 and move into the last four.

“It was incredible from the start,” Djokovic said. “I played really well for a set and a break up. The crowd supported Jo.

“He started playing really well. It was really difficult to stay focused but I was believing maybe I could have my chances.

“He was playing really aggressive. If he would have won today, he would have been a well-deserved winner.”

Djokovic is aiming to become only the third man to hold all four Grand Slams at one time, a feat his semi-final opponent Roger Federer has failed to achieve despite winning 16 Majors in a sparkling career.

“The good thing is that we both have two days off now to rest,” Djokovic added.

“And I hope to have another great match like we did in 2011. It’s always a big challenge to play Roger. He’s a fantastic player, a big champion.”