Nadal Confounds Federer; Wins 6th French Open; Wins 10th Grand Slam Title

by lee on 06. Jun, 2011 in Featured

Rafael Nadal is creating a case for himself to be the best French Open (clay court) tennis player ever.

After the win over Roger Federer in this year’s French Open (@Roland Garros), he now has six, and he only needed four sets to do it in. This is the best that Federer has played against Nadal on the clay court at the French Open, and he gave him a serious run for his money.

The sets went like this: 7-5, 7-6 (3), 5-7, 6-1. He now has moved into a two-way record tying sixth French Open.

Nadal also has 10 over Grand Slam titles. He just seems to have, the 16 time Grand Slam winner, Roger Federer’s number like no other tennis player can.

This win is raising questions about whether Federer should be holding the title of the “greatest tennis player ever”. This just goes to show how ‘wishy washy’ the media and people are.

Federer is 5 years his senior, has $63,343,910 in career winnings, 16 Grand Slam titles, 67 singles titles, 8 doubles titles…

Oh yeah, Federer beat the #1 seeded Navak Djokovic, who was also undefeated this year (including a win he had over Nadal in the ATP Internazionali BNL d’Italia) to get into the Finals against Nadal.

Nadal, who made his pro debut just 3 years after Federer, has $40,052,402 in career winnings, 45 singles titles, 7 doubles titles, and 10 Grand Slam titles.

The problem comes in when you look at their heads up stats. Nadal leads the series 17-8 (6-2 in Grand Slams and 5-0 in French Opens).

What I like most is that they have a very friendly rival. They respect each other and they just love to play tennis and to compete and to win. They are both very humble players, who know that they are among the best to ever play, they leave the rest of the bickering to the fans and the media

With the win at the Roland Garros, Nadal became the second fastest to reach 10 Grand Slam titles, missing Bjorn Borg by just 28 days. He was 171 days faster than Federer and 326 days faster than Pete Sampras.

image:blippitt