A year ago Rafael Nadal won his second Roland Garros, successfully defending what was considered by some as a lucky win in 2005. And while some might be doubting his capability and talent then, few will do so now. Between June 2006 and today Rafael Nadal has solidified his superiority on clay, winning an all-time record 81 matches on clay before Roger Federer beat him earlier this year at the Hamburg Masters. He managed to come second at Wimbledon in 2006, only losing the final to Federer, the current world’s number one and an undisputed great player (arguably the greatest player ever). Finally, in what ends up being Federer’s worse nightmare, he’s practically the only one preventing him from total dominance of the sport by consistently beating him on that surface and keeping him from winning RG.
After the Hamburg Masters many wondered whether Federer had improved his game on clay to the point of beating Nadal at his game. Questions were raised as to whether Nadal could defend his Roland Garros title some weeks later. And today he did and by doing so he kept tennis interesting for a while longer. Rafael Nadal seems solid, both physically and psychologically. I’m very eager to see how he’ll perform at Wimbledon this year. If his performance last year is any indication of his rate of improvement and if psychology counts as much as it seemed to do today at Roland Garros, where the great Roger Federer made more than twice as many mistakes as his opponent, we might be in for a surprise.
For those in Hellas, the game will be broadcast again on the Hellenic ERT Digital Sport+ channel at 00:05 local time.
