French Open: Nadal beats Rudd for the 14th Roland Garros title
Fifth-seeded, Rafael Nadal won the French Open and extended his record to the 14th title by beating Norway’s Casper Ruud in straight sets. Spanish Nadal, 36, won 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 against eight seed Rudd, 23, to extend his Grand Slam men’s singles titles to 33. He moves two ahead of his great rivals Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Nadal, who lost to Djokovic in the semi-finals last year, has won 112 of his 11t matches on the Paris clay. Nadal who also won the Australian Open has claimed back-to-back major titles for the first time since 2010 – when he won the French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open in a row. Two days after his 36th birthday, Nadal becomes the oldest French Open men’s singles champion and surpasses fellow Spaniard Andres Gimeno who won aged 34 in 1972.
A miscue from Rudd in the first point of the match perhaps indicated his nerves but he could do little to prevent Nadal from taking his serve for a 2-0 lead with a forehand winner. Nadal had won 100 of the 101 previous matches at Roland Garros where he had won the opening set, with last year’s semi-final defeat by Djokovic being the only exception. Ruud’s serve faltered again in the opening game of the second set saving three break points to hold which allowed him to then move 3-1 ahead when Nadal produced a terrible service game, though Rudd constructed a point for 0-40, and hit a double fault on the first breakpoint. Nadal broke back. Like in the first set, Ruud could not follow up a break with a hold and lost his serve again for 403 when a lob went wrong. After saving three set points, he produced a double fault on the fourth to hand over a two-set lead.
Ruud has trained at Nadal’s academy in Majorca since he was a teenager and has modeled much of his game on him. On Monday, Ruud will rise to world number six.