Nadal ready for emotional farewell at Roland Garros

Rafael Nadal will end his 19-year career at the French Open with a significantly reduced chance of adding to his 14 titles before leaving behind a record and reputation that will likely never be matched.

The great Spaniard, 22 times Grand Slam champion, won his first title at Roland Garros when he was a teenager in 2005. On Monday in a week, he will celebrate his 38th birthday.

Former world number one, now 276th in the world, Nadal has only played 15 matches since January last year. A hip injury and then a muscle tear added to a depressing litany of physical ailments that forced him to miss 12 Grand Slam tournaments in his career.

Unseeded this year, his farewell to arms could be brief after he was drawn to face world number four Alexander Zverev in the first round, with the match scheduled for Monday.

“I’m going to play the tournament thinking that I can give everything 100 percent,” Nadal explained after his second-round elimination in Rome.

“And if 100 percent isn’t enough to win a game, I’ll accept it. But I don’t want to go on the field knowing I have no chance. If there’s 0.01 percent chance , I want to explore that and give it a go.”

In addition to 14 titles in Paris, Nadal can boast a record of 112 victories and only three defeats, two of which came against his long-time rival Novak Djokovic.

He is also held in very high esteem.

At his first practice session on the Philippe Chatrier court at Roland Garros on Monday, around 6,000 people were in attendance, many chanting his name.

Grand Slam winners Stan Wawrinka and Daniil Medvedev trained with Nadal this week.

Wawrinka said Nadal was “stronger than ever”, while Medvedev admitted he was “happy not to face” the Spanish star.

Zverev has beaten Nadal only once in six meetings on clay.

When they met in Paris in 2022, the German was forced to abandon his semi-final after suffering a serious ankle injury.

“In my mind, I’m going to play against Rafa Nadal. That’s what I expect from him. I expect him to be at his best,” said Zverev, who arrives in Paris after winning the prestigious Rome Open title.

– Djokovic under a cloud –

Nadal isn’t the only A-list talent under a Parisian cloud ahead of the tournament’s start on Sunday.

Defending champion and 24-time Grand Slam title winner Djokovic, whose three titles in Paris place him alongside Gustavo Kuerten, Mats Wilander and Ivan Lendl, is going through a title drought not seen since 2018.

At the time, he had also reached the month of May without a trophy before crashing to a shock quarter-final defeat at the French Open to little-known Marco Cecchinato of Italy.

This season, Djokovic lost his title at the Australian Open and has yet to reach the final.

Adding injury to insult, he was hit in the head by a falling water bottle in Rome, a freak accident which he said caused nausea and dizziness.

In an attempt to gain some degree of confidence on clay, Djokovic, who turned 37 on Wednesday, landed a late wild card into the ongoing Geneva tournament.

It ended with a shock semifinal defeat to 44th-ranked Tomas Machac of the Czech Republic on Friday.

Djokovic begins his campaign on Tuesday against local wildcard Pierre-Hugues Herbert.

Between them, Nadal and Djokovic have shared the last eight Roland Garros titles while 2009 was the last time a Roland Garros final did not feature at least one of them.

World number two Jannik Sinner, the man who succeeded Djokovic as Australian Open champion, has been laid low by a hip injury that forced him to skip the Rome Open.

The 22-year-old Italian reached the quarterfinals of the French Open on his 2020 debut, where he was beaten by Nadal in straight sets.

“I’m not worried about my hip anymore. The last tests we did were very positive. That’s why I’m here,” said the Italian.

Sinner, who faces American Chris Eubanks in his opening match, has added incentive to progress deep in Paris as he could unseat Djokovic as world number one.

Reigning Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz also left Rome with an arm injury.

The world number three, who meets American lucky loser JJ Wolf in his opening round, got the better of Djokovic in the semi-final last year before body cramps saw him slide to defeat.

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