PARIS — As the French Open enters a new, post-Rafa, era this year, there are a couple of prevailing sentiments among tennis players.
One is: It’s a shame the world won’t get to see the King of Clay, as Rafael Nadal came to be called, ply his unique brand of topspin-heavy relentlessness on the crushed red brick of Roland-Garros, where he won a record 14 of his 22 Grand Slam titles.
The other, expressed by men who would love to get a chance at carving their own bit of history at the place, goes like this: Whew, it sure will be nice not to have that guy looming in the bracket now that the 38-year-old Spaniard is retired.
Players no longer need to worry about Nadal at the French Open
“Luckily — or unluckily — I never got to play him in Roland-Garros,” said American Tommy Paul, a 2023 Australian Open semifinalist currently ranked 12th.
“It’s nice to not have to worry about him, I guess,” Paul added with a laugh. “That’s the main thing that comes to my mind.”
Players repeatedly used the word “different” to describe what it’ll be like without Nadal around.
“It’ll be strange for the fans, above all,” said top-10 player Lorenzo Musetti, an Italian who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon and earned an Olympic bronze medal in 2024. “But the history he made in Paris will never be forgotten.”
Nadal’s 14 French Open titles are a record for any Grand Slam tournament
To be sure, Nadal’s dominance in Paris was unprecedented.
“Impossible,” defending champion Carlos Alcaraz said, “to repeat.”
Nadal collected more championships than any other player at one major tennis tournament, spanning from his first, which arrived two days after his 19th birthday in his 2005 debut, to his last at age 36 in 2022 on a painful foot that required nerve-dulling injections. He went 112-4 overall in the event.
One measure of just how good Nadal was there is reflected in his head-to-head records against the other two members of the Big Three of men’s tennis, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Nadal went 8-2 against Djokovic in the French Open — accounting for about 15% of all of Djokovic’s lifetime Grand Slam losses anywhere — and 6-0 against Federer.
“What a legend. What an ambassador for the sport,” Australian player Thanasi Kokkinakis said about Nadal. “One of the greatest athletes ever — not just in tennis.”
Nadal will be honored by a ceremony at the French Open on Sunday
He certainly left his indelible mark in Paris. A larger-than-life statue was erected near an entrance to the tournament grounds in 2021, while he was still active; a ceremony honoring him will be held Sunday in the main stadium, Court Philippe-Chatrier, after the first three matches of Day 1.
One would imagine that Nadal will be treated to the sort of applause and chants of “Ra-fa!” he heard often, including when he played for the final time at the site — at the Paris Olympics last year — and left describing the “unforgettable feeling and emotions” he enjoyed.
And no one who ever faced him, or watched him, at the French Open will forget his lefty whip of a forehand or the way he stood so far back to return serve or the way he chased every ball. Or the way the arena announcer would list off all of his ever-growing list of championship years before a match. Or the way Nadal would bite his trophies after winning one, something Naomi Osaka emulated after claiming her first clay-court title just last month.
“As a tennis community, everybody’s going to miss Rafa, for sure. If I were thinking about it selfishly, I would say, ‘Of course I want to watch Rafa play. Of course I want him to be here,’” former No. 1 and two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka said. “But I see it a little bit differently. I look at it as that was his decision. Same with when Serena (Williams) left. Of course I miss Serena; she was my biggest motivator. But they’ve moved on in their life to what’s best for them. And I just have so much respect for what they’ve done for the sport. How much they contributed. How much they elevated it. My only thing is to say, ‘Thank you,’ to players like that.”