The Spaniard added an episode to his mad domination by winning a new title at Roland-Garros.
On Sunday, in the final at Roland-Garros, the refrain is known. The disc is scratched. Rafael Nadal wins. Whatever the opponent. Whatever the conditions and his own feelings. The force of habit. The Spaniard dominated the Norwegian Casper Ruud 6-3, 6-3, 6-0, quickly stifling the suspense.
On a court of which he visited every corner, Rafael Nadal was, from the start, carried by the clamor of the public. As soon as he entered, the “Rafa”, “viva Espana” resounded in the open-air stadium. During the semi-final, Rafael Nadal had seemed to run out of air under the roof of the sweltering Philippe Chatrier court. In the final, he was able to breathe and leave the nervousness to the Norwegian Casper Ruud (8th in the world) who was playing his first Grand Slam final.
Nadal won the last 11 games of the match
Casper Ruud faced several unknowns: his ability to withstand the event, his ability to turn around his backhand to let his forehand speak and his ability to attack his idol. Casper Ruud was, in 2013, a passionate supporter of the final of Rafael Nadal (against David Ferrer). Tousled hair, greedy eyes, he had stored all the images of a player whose actions and gestures he would enjoy reproducing on the courts, before sharing training sessions, from 2018, on the courts of the Nadal academy. Because if Nadal and Ruud met for the first time on the circuit, they know each other by heart. And this aspect was not the easiest to settle for the Norwegian neophyte facing the master of the place. Broken and led 2-0 in the first set, Ruud was rarely faulted by Rafael Nadal who sometimes gave the impression of struggling with his game, of not mastering all aspects of the match but that adversity sublimated . Led 3-1 in the 2nd set (service to follow), he chained 5 consecutive games and pocketed the set. And lay a firm hand on the cup. Beaké and led 2-0 in the 3rd set, Ruud was no longer able to upset Nadal, the master of the earth.
Throughout the day, the heart of the stadium beat for the magnificent gladiator who, over the laps, appeared harassed, on the verge of breaking, threatened to fall from the wire on which he was walking but managed to keep the ‘balance. True to its legend. That of an indestructible player, back from all injuries. The last spring hit him with a cracked rib and recurring, throbbing pain in his left foot. But nothing disconcerted him. At 36, Rafael Nadal has once again circled the earth. Overwhelmed with emotion. And for the first time in a fantastic career launched in 2001, the Spaniard won the first two Grand Slam tournaments. If the rest is written in ellipsis, this tournament in which he dismissed four players from the Top 10 (like Mats Wilander at Roland-Garros in 1982 and Roger Federer at the Australian Open in 2017), Felix Auger- Aliassime (n°9), Novak Djokovic (n°1), Alexander Zverev (n°3) and Casper Ruud (n°8) and survived in the upper part of the table full of traps, gives a new dimension to this player of legend.