If Rafael Nadal felt he had definitively re-established himself as the pre-eminent force on clay in men’s tennis by winning last year’s French Open, he did not account for Novak Djokovic.
Victory over Robin Soderling in last year’s final restored Nadal’s reputation as the king of Roland Garros, 12 months after he had conceded his title to Roger Federer.
He could not have imagined, however, that Djokovic would find his feet on the surface this year and having lost to the Serb in the finals of the Madrid and Rome Masters events, Nadal’s crown appears to be slipping.
After going down 7-5, 6-4 in Madrid, Nadal was beaten 6-4, 6-4 in Rome last Sunday, despite having beaten Djokovic in all nine of their previous meetings on clay.
The pair fought out a record-breaking four-hour marathon in the Madrid semis in 2009, with Nadal eventually prevailing 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (11/9), but, on the whole, Djokovic had rarely troubled Nadal on the dirt.
The Spaniard prevailed in their first three meetings at Roland Garros between 2006 and 2008 without losing a set and also emerged triumphant in last year’s Monte Carlo Masters and Rome Masters finals.
Djokovic has taken the upper hand this year, though, beating the world No. 1 in four Masters finals, while constructing an unbeaten 37-match run that is only five matches short of John McEnroe’s all-time season start record.
Despite having won five French Open titles in six years, Nadal will be in the unfamiliar position of arriving at Roland Garros with the spotlight on someone else.
He says, however, that Djokovic’s astonishing form cannot go on forever.
“For me, it doesn’t matter if people think I am more beatable than before. The important thing is to be confident and happy with what I’m doing and to do everything I can,” he said. “It won’t continue like this forever because it’s impossible. I wish him the best, but I will keep trying.”
Last Sunday’s defeat in the Italian capital was only Nadal’s eighth loss on clay in 201 matches on the surface.
The 24-year-old concedes that Djokovic’s current form makes him a formidable opponent, but says he has no reason to feel intimidated by the rangy right-hander from Belgrade.
“He’s a complete player, he can do everything,” Nadal said. “He defends very well, better than he did before. He can attack very well, like he did before. He’s very, very good, that’s the problem.”
“He has all the shots. He beat me in the last four Masters, but I beat him in lots of important things in the past: the semi-finals of the Olympics, the final of the US Open, two semi-finals at Roland Garros,” Nadal said. “We will see what happens in the future.”
As well as puncturing Nadal’s aura of invincibility on clay, Djokovic has closed the world ranking gap to just 405 points and will leapfrog Nadal atop the standings if he reaches the final in Paris.
The 23-year-old world No. 2 has also emulated Nadal by becoming only the second player since 1990 to qualify for the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals before the French Open.
For all his astonishing progress, however, Djokovic still considers Nadal the man to beat.
“He’s the king of clay,” Djokovic said. “He’s the best ever to play on this surface. He’s been so dominant on clay courts.”
“Yes, I won two matches in the last eight days and that’s incredible for me, it gives me a lot of confidence ahead of the French Open,” Djokovic said. “But it’s just two tournaments, whereas he’s been so dominant for so many years.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier