Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal has won the 22nd Grand Slam title of his career. He defeated Casper Rood of Norway 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 in the men’s singles final at the French Open on Sunday. The match lasted for 2 hours and 18 minutes. With this, Nadal has won the French Open title for the 14th time.
Nadal, 36, has become the oldest French Open champion. Roode, who lost to Nadal in the final, has also been his disciple. He has been training at Nadal’s academy since 2018.
14th final on the clay court of Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal became champion every time
Nadal went to play the final of the French Open for the 14th time. They continued their streak of not losing any final match on the red gravel of Roland Garros. He became champion for the first time here in 2005. By 2008, he became the champion here four times in a row. In 2009, he had to face defeat in the fourth round. After this, he won the title here for five consecutive times from 2010 to 2014.
In 2015, he had to face defeat in the quarter-finals. He withdrew from the third-round match due to injury in 2016. From 2017 to 2020, Nadal again became the champion here for four consecutive times. Last year (in 2021), he lost to Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals.
Federer and Djokovic lead two Grand Slams
Nadal is the male player to have won the most Grand Slam singles titles in the world. By winning the 22nd title, he took a two-title lead over his closest rivals Roger Federer of Switzerland and Novak Djokovic of Serbia. Federer and Djokovic have 20-20 Grand Slam titles to their name.
Nadal was considered only a clay court specialist till 2007.
Nadal started playing Grand Slam in 2003. At the beginning of his career, he was considered only a clay court player. That is a player who can win only on clay surfaces but cannot succeed on grass courts and hard courts.
But, in 2008, he broke this myth by defeating Federer in the final of Wimbledon. In 2009, he proved himself to be a hard-court winner by winning the Australian Open title for the first time.
He also won a career slam by winning the US Open (Hard Court) title in 2010. A tennis player achieves a Career Slam only when he has won all four Grand Slam titles at least once. Nadal has won every Grand Slam title at least twice. Before him, only Djokovic had done this feat.