Spaniard Rafael Nadal showed that on clay courts there is no one better than him. Nadal putting on superlative display sraced off to a crushing 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 win over Stan Wawrinka in two hours and five minutes for his tenth French Open title and add his name to history books. In the process, he continued his winning streak in French Open finals to ten with the only time he’s not won the title coming in 2009 (losing in fourth round to Robin Soderling), 2015 (losing to Novak Djokovic in quarterfinal) and last year retiring early due to a wrist issue. This also took his win-loss record on the Parisian clay to 79-2. With the win, Nadal has now moved to World No 2 behind Andy Murray while Wawrinka moves to No 3 in the world.
The loss means Wawrinka’s streak of being unbeaten in Grand Slams comes to an end after winning the 2015 French Open, 2014 Australian Open and 2016 US Open. Only the Wimbledon is the elusive Grand Slam for Wawrinka.
Wawrinka stood no chance against Nadal’s pulsating form to be broken early in all three sets and finding it difficult to crawl his way back. The Swiss player’s frustration could be captured no better than at the end of the second set where he smashed his racket on his knee after a 40-minute contest ended with Wawrinka unable to send Nadal’s body serve back.
Rafa closed out the contest when Wawrinka failed to return a low return off his backhand back and fell to the ground in trademark fashion. The Spaniard’s brilliant form saw him not dropping a single set throughout the course of the tournament. It is the third time, Nadal has achieved the feat; he did not drop a single set in 2008 and 2010 either. He lost only 35 games in the the tournament, just three more than Bjorn Borg in 1978 French Open.
After winning the trophy, Nadal described himself as “emotional” and said he feels “very, very special” to lift the trophy for the 10th time. “It’s really incredible. To win La Decima is very, very special,” said Nadal and added, “I am very emotional. The feeling I have is impossible to describe,” Nadal said.
