This time last year, the future seemed uncertain for the greatest player ever to wield a racket on a clay court. Rafael Nadal had been forced to pull out of the third round at last year’s French Open with a wrist injury, and it reduced him to tears.
And while he had, ahead of Paris, won his much-loved Monte-Carlo Masters and Barcelona 500, he had also failed to get beyond the semis in Buenos Aires, Rio, Madrid or Rome. Nadal battled back to play the Olympics, but after a lack-lustre US Open swing and first-round loss in Shanghai he pulled out of the rest of the season. By the time he played this year’s Australian Open, then, he was ranked No9, but a future that had looked uncertain suddenly looked anything but.
He made the finals in Melbourne, Acapulco and Miami, won his 10th Monte-Carlo and Barcelona titles, his fifth Madrid Masters, and by the time he reached his 10th final at Roland Garros, he had already accumulated more match-wins than in the entire 2016 season. He had also won more clay titles, 52, than anyone in the Open era.
Here, he went through his draw like a hot knife through butter. He dropped only 29 games, and no more than four in any set, as he knocked out Benoit Paire, No17 seed Roberto Bautista Agut, No20 seed Pablo Carreno Busta—who retired in the second set—and No4 seed Dominic Thiem.
He ducked potential opponents such as Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov, who had tested him earlier this year, saw defending champion and scheduled semi-final rival, Novak Djokovic, lose in the quarters, and No1 Andy Murray lose to Stan Wawrinka in the semis. Meanwhile the only man who had given Nadal a severe headache this year, Roger Federer, had opted out of the clay season entirely.
Who could stem Nadal’s charge to that remarkable 10th French Open title? Just one man, Stan the Man.
Wawrinka likes nothing better than remaining under the radar, but from that quiet exterior has emerged with his maturing years a gladiator of a player. Always a man with power and flair, it all came together—the self-belief, the fitness, the determination—to win his first three Majors after turning 30. Should he win his fourth, he would also achieve a new career-high ranking of No2 at the age of 32.
For it was not until 2014 that the big-time Wawrinka had really broken out. His first title was in 2006, and he would win just three more until 2014. Then he won his first Major in Australia and his first Master in Monte-Carlo within months of each other.
There were four titles in each of 2015 and 2016, each topped by a Major. This year he almost beat Federer in the semis of the Australian Open, made the final in Indian Wells, and picked up the Geneva title as a prelude to this final run at Roland Garros.
The stark switch in fortunes were reflects in his record against Nadal, too. Before 2014, he had played and lost 12 matches, not even winning a set. Since then, he had gone 3-3, and won their only Major title bout.
But then Wawrinka had won each Major final he played, beating the No1 each time: Nadal once and Djokovic twice. This year, he had beaten the world No1 in the semis, trumping Andy Murray in a five-set thriller packed with winners.
Perhaps that, in the end, was Wawrinka’s downfall. Having shown enormous physical and mental fortitude to win that match—and that after beating quality opposition such as Marin Cilic and Gael Monfils—he had to do the same two days later against a near-perfect Nadal.
And it could not have begun better for Nadal, a love hold, but Wawrinka was quickly on the attack to work a break point in the third game. Nadal turned to his improving serve, as he has been able to do with increasing success, to save the day.
Now Wawrinka began to spray errors, already eight on the forehand, to offer up not one but four break point chances. For now, he came through a 10-minute hold and six deuces, 2-2, but the writing was on the wall.
Nadal used every metre of the court, standing way behind the baseline to receive, and producing ever-tougher angles. He thumped a plunging forehand cross court to the Wawrinka backhand and followed it with missile down-the-line winner. At 0-40, two more Spanish forehands drew another error and the break, 4-2.
Nadal pressed home his advantage—and his superiority thus far in shot-making—with a couple of aces, another devastating forehand, and a net finish, 5-2. And if he needed to assert himself any more, he did so with a final break for the set, 6-2. It was brutal and ruthless, and drew error after error from Wawrinka, 17 of them to just four winners.
The dominance continued into the second set. Nadal’s backhand began to wreak as much havoc as his forehand, as he pressed deep to the corners with lunging top-spin trajectories. Wawrinka seemed short of ideas on how to change the unfolding rhythm, and was immediately broken to love.
The Swiss finally stemmed the flow of seven games with a hold, but he held on by his finger-tips, and even he could not fail to applaud a slap of a running forehand winner from Nadal. And for all that Wawrinka was now extending the rallies, he could make no inroads on Nadal’s penetrating power.
The Spaniard held for 5-2 with an ace down the centre, and drew a racket-breaking error from Wawrinka as he served out the set, 6-3.
Things went from bad to worse for the Swiss. Nadal broke in the opening game of the third, and to rub salt into the wound, did what Wawrinka had failed to do: stormed in for a fine volley winner, his 11th out of 11 points at the net.
Wawrinka worked deuce for only the second time in the match on Nadal’s serve, but still the Spaniard was clutch: 3-1. The Swiss survived four deuces, and appealed to the crowd for encouragement with a rare angled volley winner, but he let fly too hard in the next two points to concede another break, 4-1. Nadal held to love with his 90th point of the match, and Wawrinka now had to serve to stay in the match. It was a lost cause.
Nadal was finding depth, angle, power and spin that would brook no argument. One last forehand pinged off the court to draw a volley stab from his opponent, and the 10th title was his, 6-1.
The Spaniard’s uncle lifted his hands aloft to applaud. This will be Toni Nadal’s last time coaching Nadal here, a dozen years after watching his nephew win the first. What greater reward could the 31-year-old Rafa give him than this, and what greater comeback could a player produce after that heart-breaking end to his 2016 campaign.
With this title, he becomes the first man or woman in the Open era to win 10 titles at any single Major. He also overtakes Pete Sampras’s tally of 14 Majors—a record that looked set to stand for decades but has now been overtaken by two men. Nadal will rise back to No2 in the rankings for the first time since October 2014 and extends his lead at the top of the Race to London. He now has a staggering 79-2 record at Roland Garros, and this year has accumulated more titles and more match-wins than any other player.
Wawrinka afterwards summed it up.
“That’s what happens when you play against Rafa. He’s a big, big champion. He won so many big titles. He’s playing so well this year. I’m not the first and not the last to lose against him on clay.
“We have seen him play from the start of the year on clay, Australia, in other tournaments. He is really fit, he’s aggressive, his level of play is unbelievable… He was really good today, better than me.”
Not surprisingly, Nadal was highly emotional after his victory. He told the Roland Garros crowd, in French:
“It’s really incredible, to win the 10th is very, very special. Very emotional and my French is very bad, and at this moment even worse because I am very emotional.
“My feelings here are impossible to describe.”
Adding to the emotion, and a lovely touch by the tournament, Uncle Toni was invited to present a replica trophy to his nephew. His last time here will certainly be one to treasure. One suspects, though, it will not be his nephew’s last time on this particular stage.