Right so this is the final post on the French Open, the second major of the tennis season, and this post will be focusing on the men's final, which was a Spanish duel between Rafa Nadal and David Ferrer, so let's look at it a bit more closely.
Well the match up was a difficult one especially for Ferrer who was so far behind in the head to head it left him with little hope that he could win through as Rafa lead it 19-4. And from the first set you could see the tell tale signs that this was going to be a real uphill battle for Ferrer as he struggled to deal with the Rafa whirlwind. Regardless of that though Ferrer did show enough of his fighting qualities in the 1st set as he managed to break Rafa to make it 2-2, but it didn't last long as Rafa went a break up again, and after some scrappy moments he came through to win the first set. In the 2nd set the quality of play actually rose that bit more and both men traded some excellent rallies, despite the fact that Ferrer went a double break down, he managed to get one of the breaks back, but he ended up playing a horrible service game to hand the 2nd set to Rafa. In the 3rd set Rafa started off by breaking Ferrer, but when he went on to play a wretched service game of his own, allowing Ferrer back in. However from here Ferrer continued to struggle to string the points together, and after numerous break point chances they all pretty much went by him, and it wasn't long before Rafa served it out as he went flat on his back in delight having won his record breaking 8th French Open title with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 victory.
Overall this wasn't actually a bad final in itself and Ferrer despite the disappointment of losing, showed enough grit against his fellow compatriot and despite the scoreline he created plenty of break point chances and even took a few. However when it came to the crunch Ferrer just wasn't quite able to convert his chances when it really mattered, especially in the 3rd set when it was 3-3 and he had a break point against Rafa's serve, which would have allowed him to move ahead for the first time in the match. And that's probably where Ferrer stands away from the top four players as he just doesn't quite have the weapons to take them down and that in itself is why he wasn't able to defeat Rafa today. However it was great to see Ferrer do so well at Roland Garros this year and reach his maiden grand slam final, and even if he fails to do so again, at least its something he has achieved in his career, as its the least he deserves.
As for Rafa well this is quite an incredible achievement as he has once again made a bit of history today by becoming the first player to win the same grand slam title eight times, which has never been done before, and it was 12th major title overall. And it also sees Rafa win his 57th career title and the seventh of the year already so far, which is incredible in itself. Not only that but Rafa has reached the final of every tournament he has played in this year so far, and its a fair assumption that he will go on to reach the final of Wimbledon as well, although that is a wee bit far off so we will have to wait and see. However Rafa's return to this tour in 2013 has been nothing but emphatic and its a remarkable comeback which no doubt will carry on, and it will be fascinating to see how well he will stack up on the grass and hard court swings ahead.
So that's it for now and the clay court season is over for another year, and its farewell to the French Open which has been a terrific tournament. Next up is the grass court season, which begins this week at the Aegon championships at Queens club in London, where Andy Murray makes his return to the tour after recovering from his back injury that made him pull out of the French. So we will see how Andy will get on this week and let's hope his back will be ok, as no doubt we will soon find out.
And that's it for now.
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