On Sunday, June 5th 2022, 17 years to the day after winning his first title, professional tennis player Rafael Nadal defeated former student Casper Ruud 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 to win the French Open, raising the La Coupe Des Mousquetaires (translation: The Musketeers’ Trophy) for…wait for it…the 14th time in his career. The French Open is one of four major tournaments in professional tennis known as a Grand Slam (the other three are Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open). Grand Slams (also known as Majors) are the highest level tournament played at the professional level, the sport’s equivalent of the SuperBowl or World Series. Since tennis is a year round sport, it boasts 4 tournaments of similar prestige instead of just a single event.
A few major sports, such as football and baseball, have more than one official surface that matches can be played on (usually natural grass and astroturf, a synthetic carpeting designed to look like grass). Tennis is unique in that it has three official surfaces (grass, clay and hard courts), each very different than the others. These surfaces are each represented by a different Grand Slam. The US Open and the Australian Open are hard court tournaments and the Wimbledon Championships are famously played on grass, leaving the French Open (also known as Roland Garros) to be the lone Major played on clay, widely considered the most fickle of the surfaces.
Playing on clay requires a bit of training to master. Clay courts are not actually made of “clay”, but rather crushed stone, brick and other unbound materials, giving the surface almost a slippery feeling, with the top comprised of a layer of loose gravel. Clay tends to play somewhat slower, with the balls bouncing higher and feeling heavier as they lose more of their initial speed when contacting the surface, then either grass or hard court. Players can slide on clay, enhancing their ability to run down returned shots, leading to longer rallies and thusly longer played points. For many American players who grew up playing on hard courts it’s been an impossible surface to win on. In the 131 years the French Open has been played (94 years at the Roland Garros venue) only 9 Americans (3 men and 6 women) have ever won the singles tournament, fewer than at any other Major.
Tennis legend Pete Sampras, widely considered the greatest of all time before the Federer, Nadal and Djokovic era and holder of 14 grand slams, never even advanced past the quarterfinals at Roland Garros. Nadal’s biggest rivals, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, the two players vying with Nadal for the title of Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) have won the French less than any of the other majors (in large part due to Nadal’s supremacy). So its easy to argue that for many players winning the French Open might be the tallest task in tennis. Even if we simply assume all Grand Slams are equally challenging what does it mean to win one 14 times? Honestly, it’s inconceivable, and yes I’m pretty sure that word means what I think it means. I dare say it’s the greatest single achievement in Sports history. Not just in tennis, but any sport.
First let’s look at it just in the context of tennis. Consider for a moment that tournaments are held once a year. It would take a minimum of 14 years to win the same tournament over and over again. Nadal won 14 tournaments in 18 tries. Sounds insanely hard but how hard is that, really? It’s true the newest generation of tennis champion has been playing longer and retiring older. In 2000 there were 7 players 30 years or older in the ATP top 100 rankings. In 2022 there are 31 players over the age of 30+. Still, the average age of retirement is 27. As most professional players on both the men and women’s side start in their teens, the average career length according to the ATP is 10 years.
So to even have a chance to break a record like Nadal’s you’d need to play for a minimum of 14 years, 40% longer than the majority of players’ careers even last. Carlos Alvarez, a 19 year old phenom from Rafa’s home country of Spain is widely believed to be the heir apparent to Nadal. He plays the same game but he’s younger, faster, and presumably hungrier. He’s demonstrated exceptional ability on clay and many commentators feel he is destined for success at Roland Garros. He may very well win it, probably a few times. But to match Rafa’s record he would have to win starting next year and continue to win every single year until he’s 34. In all likelihood he won’t even play that long.
Nadal claims to have missed a total of 15 Grand Slam tournaments over the course of his 19 professional year career (including a French Open miss and a withdrawal) due to injury but let’s for argument’s sake assume that an elite player can (and will) play for long enough and participate enough times. Could they possibly match Nadal’s record? Well, here’s a staggering statistic: only two tennis players in history have ever won the same tournament 10 or more times. Federer is the only other player to do it, winning the Basel Open and Halle Open 10 times each. Apart from the 14 French Open titles, Nadal won the Barcelona Open 12 times, the Monte Carlo Masters 11 times and the Italian Open 10 times. That’s it. Basel and Halle are hardly the French Open and no tournament has ever been won 11 or more times by any player other than Nadal.
As Grand Slams go, the player with the second most titles at a single major is Djokovic with 9 Australian Opens (Martina Navratilova also won 9 women’s Wimbledon singles titles). Martina has long been retired and there is probably (almost certainly) not enough years left in Djokovic’s career for him to catch Nadal’s record 14 same Slam victories with Australian titles. Federer is widely considered the greatest grass court player in history, winning a record 8 Wimbledon titles. Federer and Djokovic’s accomplishments in and of themselves are almost unreproducable, which makes Nadal’s French Open dominance all the more miraculous. No one player has ever dominated a Major, let alone any tournament, the way Nadal dominates the French
How dominate has Nadal been at the French? Let’s take a look at the numbers:
- 14 titles (record)
- 112-3 overal record
- Most wins by any player at any Major
- 14-0 in finals (record)
- 5 consecutive titles (record)
- 39 match win streak (record)
- Highest win percentage of any player at any major (97.3%)
- 4 titles without dropping a single set (most by any player at any Major)
- Oldest player to win a French Open
- Won at least one title across three decades (2000s, 2010s, 2020)
- Won 7 finals without dropping a set (record)
After Nadal, the player to win the most titles at Roland Garros is Swedish legend Bjorn Borg with 6. At the time it was believe impossible that anyone would (or rather could) break Borg’s record of 6 titles. Nadal now as more than twice that many. The differential between their titles (8) is the total number of titles that Andre Agassi ever won in his career. The 112 wins is more than any men’s tennis player has ever won at a single Major. In order to win the latest title he had to defeat four top ten players, only the 3rd man to ever do that at a tour-level event. Even the organizers of the French Open itself are in awe. Before last year’s tournament they unveiled a statues of Rafa on the ground of Roland Garros. He was standing at 13 titles at the time. I can’t think of a single instance where an athelete was memorialized with a statue at a venue that they were still playing at. If Yankee Stadium was the House that Ruth Built, then Court Philippe-Chatrier is the Dirt Patch that Nadal Dominates.
A Place in History
A quick look into the history books of all professional sports will yield some astounding accomplishments. The Miami Dolphins perfect season. Jerry Rice’s 208 career touchdowns. The Celtics 8 consecutive championships. Gretzky’s four 200 point seasons (and his record of 215 points in a season). Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game. Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak. UCLA basketball’s 11 National Championships (7 in a row). Tom Brady’s 7 SuperBowl wins. The 27 World Series titles of the New York Yankees. There are many unbelievable achievements and some of these may never, ever be broken (though some may).
It’s hard to compare Nadal’s French Open record with the aforementioned, since all of those were achieved in team sports and some of them were achieved in only a single instance of greatness. Jerry Rice may never have his record broken but he didn’t throw the ball to himself, meaning that some of these amazing records required more than one player displaying greatness to achieve. Gretzky’s record most likely will never be broken, and Gretzky is undoubtably the greatest hockey player in history, but the Edmonton Oilers (the team he played for during that stretch) was loaded with talented players. He’s the Great One, but he wasn’t the Only One to participate in those records.
Maybe it would be more analogous to look at individual sport records. Jack Nicklaus’ 18 golf Majors. Michael Phelps’ 28 Olympic medals (23 gold). Jimmy Wilde’s 103 consecutive boxing victories. Kelly Slater’s 11 surfing world championships. Marcel Hirscher’s 8 consecutive World Cup skiing titles. Usain Bolt’s numerous world records. It’s clear that Nadal’s French Open record can stand among them as an all-time great sports achievement but, at least in my mind, a few things set Nadal’s record apart from all others. Perhaps the most important difference is the era in which he plays.
The Golden Age of Tennis
This era of tennis, defined roughly from 2003 until present, is referred to by fans and commentators alike as the Golden Age of professional tennis. It has seen a renaissance both in terms of the game’s development and fan interest. Tennis is arguably more popular now than any other time in its history (especially outside the US) and that is due in large part to the trio of great players dubbed The Big 3. The Big 3 is of course Nadal, Djokovic and Federer. How Big are the Big 3? Here’s a stat for you: From the 2003 Australian Open through to the 2022 French Open the Big 3 has accounted for 62 of the 77 Grand Slam titles won. Think about that. 81% of all Majors over a staggering 19 year period have been won by the SAME THREE GUYS. That’s a combined 12 US Open titles, 16 Wimbledons, 17 Australian Opens and 17 French Opens. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Between them they also hold almost every major record in the sport.
Let’s make this perfectly clear, there has NEVER been a professional sport that has been dominated by so few for so, so long. This, in and of itself, is an unprecedented and remarkable feat. The player ranked fourth on the list of all-time Grand Slam winners is Sampras with 14 titles (7 Wimbledon, 5 US Open, 2 Australian Open). Nadal has that many AT JUST THE FRENCH OPEN. The Big 3 are unequivocally without a doubt the greatest players in the history of men’s tennis. It’s not even close. But the most astounding thing isn’t just how much better they are then everyone else, current and former players alike, its that they are all PLAYING AT THE SAME TIME!
Here’s a way to look at it: Imagine that Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Larry Bird all played in their prime during the same era but on different teams. One year the Bulls win, the next the Lakers, the next the Celtics as the greatest players in history vie for ultimate dominance. Would Jordan and the Bulls have won 6 championships if the rest of those guys were leading other teams? Would Kobe and the Lakers? No one knows or could ever really know. In tennis though, it’s happening right now. Nadal and Djokovic combined have won 5 of the last 6 Majors. There has never been a professional sport where the undisputed greatest players in the sport’s history were contemporaries of each other and certainly not in a major individual sport like tennis. So when we look at Nadal’s French Open record, we have to remember he did this while battling his rivals who are also the other two GOATs.
Nadal is 6-0 against Federer and 8-2 against Djokovic at the French. The two losses to Djokovic comprise 2 of the 3 losses he’s ever had there. Not only does Nadal dominate his fiercest rivals on the terre battue, he has prevented them from winning more Slams. Without Nadal it would have been easy to conceive both Federer and Djoker winning conservatively at least 3 a piece. All of this is to say he accomplished this feat in definitively the most difficult era of Grand Slam competition, making it all the more impressive.
And that’s part of what makes it so incredible. If another player in the future was able to win 14 French Open titles they would not have to defeat Djokovic or Federer 14 times to do it. Even separating the path to victory from the title itself, a feat of this magnitude requires far more than brilliance, it requires dominance that stretch over decades. This achievement is arguably sport’s greatest, not for just for the talent and skill required but for the endurance and longevity. It’s an act of mind-boggling greatness and even if you don’t believe it should sit atop the summit of achievements in the pantheon of great sport records, there is no denying that it is something we’ve never seen before and will likely never see again.
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