Opinion Fall of a king
The rule of Rafael Nadal over the clay court may be over. It’s the end of an era.
Rafael Nadal
The greatest clay-courter had his confidence thrashed too. Before this week, Nadal had never lost in straight sets at Roland Garros.
The certainty of witnessing the rise of a new champion at this year’s French Open has been overshadowed by uncertainty over the fate of Paris’s greatest hero. Rafael Nadal, nine-time French Open champion, didn’t just have the tar beaten out of him by Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals. The greatest clay-courter had his confidence thrashed too. Before this week, Nadal had never lost in straight sets at Roland Garros. In fact, he had never lost in straight sets in a best-of-five match on any clay court in the world — ever. But even his fans had feared it was coming, considering that for the first time in his career, the Spaniard hadn’t won a single tournament on clay in the build-up to the 2015 French Open, losing to rank outsiders on his favourite surface.
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All through this decade, the Serb has been in hot pursuit of Nadal’s title, quite like how Nadal had reeled in Roger Federer in the Noughties. In the last four years, Djokovic beat Nadal to win the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open crowns. But it was beating Nadal in his backyard that he was after. Of course, Nadal has been written off due to bad form and injuries in the past, only to bounce back. The chances of that happening again, however, look bleak.
Come next week, he will be ranked outside the top-10 for the first time since 2005, which will see him taking on the big names in the early rounds of future tournaments. And at 29, Nadal’s game, built around muscle, spin and power, doesn’t pop like it used to. Injuries and a withering body saw Nadal win just one Grand Slam outside of the French Open this decade. But at least he had good old Paris, where nobody dared look the king in the eye. Until this year, that is.
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