Rafael Nadal remains unbeatable on the clay of
Rolland Gaross. Not even a spirited challenge by the world No 4, Dominic Thiem,
could stop the 33-year-old Spaniard winning the French Open for a 12th time on
Sunday, a feat unlikely to be matched in their lifetimes, if ever.
For two sets the 25-year-old Austrian made a proper
fight of it. But Nadal responded to the threat by tearing through the final two
sets like the wind that has disrupted the schedule over the past few days to
win 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 in three hours.
In his previous 11 finals only a handful of
players have detained him longer than Thiem: Mariano Puerta on Nadal’s winning
debut as a teenager in 2005, Roger Federer three times and Novak Djokovic in
his toughest final, seven years ago. But a string of dazzled contenders have
fallen with embarrassing haste – most notably Federer, when Nadal took only an
hour and 48 minutes in allowing him only four games in 2008.
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