Rafael Nadal proved once and for all yesterday that he no equal and really no challengers to his dominance on clay as he thoroughly dismantled the best player in the world, Roger Federer, in three sets at 1, 3 and love. It wasn’t even close. I have seen nearly every match the two have played and never have I seen one completely destroy the other the way Nadal did yesterday to punctuate his amazing clay court season. Federer’s only reprieve is that the clay season is now over and he can set his sights on a 6th straight Wimbledon title and cementing his number one ranking.
As Federer was playing for history for the third straight year by completing the career grand slam as the French Open is the only slam to elude him, while inching one closer to Pete Sampras’ record of 14 grand slams: Nadal was playing for history as well. He tied Bjorn Borg’s open era record of winning 4 straight titles at Roland Garros by improving to a staggering 28-0 at the French Open. Let me repeat that-he has never lost there-ever.
While Roger Federer is no doubt one of the 2 or 3 best players of all time, he will have to wait to be universally considered the best as his clay court nemesis, Nadal, continually beats him in their finals on clay. Nadal improved to 9-1 against Federer on clay and nearly all of those matches are in finals of majors or Masters events. Shocking really but fitting because Nadal may go down in history as the best clay court player ever. If Federer has no equal on grass or hard courts, Nadal is certainly the same on clay.
While I am a huge admirer of Federer, I am in awe of what Nadal has accomplished on clay. He needs to improve on the other surfaces to ever take over number one from Federer but he is closing the gap. Mentally he has an incredible advantage on Federer but the second half of the season is historically where Federer puts the distance between him and the rest of the field so it should interesting to see what happens as we move into the summer. The ATP has never been stronger with these two giants and of course Novak Djokovic coming of age as well.
I predict Federer will lose the number one ranking by the US Open. He has a lot to defend the rest of the year so Nadal and especially Djokovic can make up a lot of ground. he literally needs to win almost every tournament he plays or at least name the finals.
I agree he has a tough run ahead. The only tournaments that he has nothing to defend is Halle and Stockholm which he didn’t play last year. Paris is the only event left on his schedule that he didn’t win or make the final last year so it will be tough but grass and hard court are his strength and the other guys have to step up too or it won’t even matter. If he wins Wimbledon and Halle, he will secure number one basically through the US Open. Should be exciting.
Great player-horrible clothes