Rafa Nadal sets sights of joining elite club with 2022 French Open pledge

Rafael Nadal reacts to winning the French Open title

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

If Rafa Nadal does what looks inevitable against outsider Casper Ruud on Sunday it would earn the Spaniard his 14th French Open title but also keep alive the possibility of joining one of tennis’s most elite clubs.

After his win at the Australian Open in January, it would take Nadal half way to claiming a full house of Grand Slams in 2022. Only two men in the game’s history have managed a calendar slam – Don Budge in 1938 and Rod Laver in 1962 and 1969 – which hammers home how difficult the feat is to achieve.

The remarkable thing about Nadal’s bid to join them is that he is embarking on it at the age of 36 and with a dodgy foot.

Through to yet another French Open final, Nadal has looked anything but his age at Roland Garros. The hairline may not be quite what it once was but the king of clay has been regal on court.

If there was some good fortune to his semi-final passage with Alexander Zverev having to retire he was tested properly in the preceding rounds by Felix Auger-Aliassime and Novak Djokovic yet passed with flying colours.

In any year, the French Open is Nadal’s banker Grand Slam. He owns the surface. But the duopoly enjoyed by Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer on the hard courts of Melbourne means he has usually turned up at Roland Garros without a Slam in the can.

Not this year. Two out of two to start the year would represent virgin territory.

Next up comes Wimbledon. The grass has been Nadal’s least productive environment but he is still good enough on it to have won the championships twice in the past. It is not beyond him to do so again.

The presence of Djokovic offers a powerful counter-argument to what would be his first title at SW19 for 12 years but there is a feeling of a door opening for him at this year’s championships.

Federer, the eight-time champion, will not be around to block his path while Andy Murray is no longer a genuine obstacle with all the miles on his clock and a replacement hip. 

Wimbledon’s controversial Russian ban has also taken Daniil Medvedev out of the equation.

Should he pull it off on Centre Court next month that would leave only the US Open which he has won four times before, the last time in a five-setter against Medvedev three years ago.

Of course Ruud could play the game of his life in the French Open final and stop the bandwagon before it leaves Paris; injuries could strike too – just ask Zverev.

But all things being equal Nadal should find himself with the Musketeers’ Cup on Sunday evening – and half way to tennis heaven.

Source: Read Full Article