Rafael Nadal has won the 2018 French Open title. He was completely unstoppable today, and despite Dominic Thiem putting up one hell of a fight, it wasn’t enough to dethrone the King of Clay.
Here’s what happened.
First Set: 6-4 Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal was quickly into the match, serving first and not dropping a single point on his serve. Unfortunately for Dominic Thiem, he didn’t come out as strong, and lost his serve on the first break point. With 7 minutes on the clock, Rafael Nadal was 2-0 up. This was soon rectified by Thiem, who broke straight back and followed up with a hold of serve to level the match at 2-2.
The first set continued on serve until Nadal was 5-4 up, with three set points on Thiem’s serve. He only needed one to secure the first set 6-4.
Second Set: 6-3 Rafael Nadal
Nadal started off strong in the second set, winning his serve. Thiem fought back on his serve and despite saving four break points, Nadal took his serve to go 2-0 in the second set. Nadal continued with amazing, offensive play and held his serve to go 3-0 up.
Thiem manages to hold his serve, and fought hard on Nadal’s serve to try to break back, and level the match. Unfortunately for him, Nadal played some amazing points from being 30-0 down on his serve, to hold and go 4-1 up. Thiem, also some great tennis in his serving game, held with no problems. He then challenged Nadal on his serve, producing some of the best tennis we have seen at the tournament thus far.
At this stage of the match, we were seeing some of the best tennis from both Nadal and Thiem. Dominic Thiem had a break point to win back the serve he lost at the beginning of the set but was unable to take it. Nadal held at 5-2, and it was Thiem who had to serve to stay in the second set. Thiem held, forcing Nadal to serve for the set at 5-3.
As impressive as ever, Rafael Nadal took the second set 6-3.
Third Set: 6-2 Rafael Nadal
In the third set, Thiem came out fighting, saved a number of break points and was first on the scoreboard in the third set. Nadal followed, and levelled the set at 1 a-piece. It wasn’t long before Thiem was back in trouble on his serve with Nadal breaking, and leading 2-1 in the third set.
In Nadal’s service game, there was something different and it all became clear when Nadal stopped, walked over to his seat and told the umpire that he couldn’t move his finger. He sat down, a trainer came on court, and was given a few minutes restbite to try and find a solution. At this stage, it was unsure what the issue was, but this was later confirmed to be cramp which is technically not considered an injury worthy of more than two on-court treatments.
Nadal held despite the cramping issue, Thiem also held, and Nadal was back on form in his service game, with a strong hold, leading 4-2. This lead extended further as Nadal broke Thiem once again to go 5-2 up, and serve for the match.
He served, and, in true Nadal Style, closed the game, set, match and championship with a strong serve.
Congratulations to Rafael Nadal on his record 11th Roland Garros title.