The glowering, spitting skies abruptly cleared midway through the fourth set in the resumption of the French Open final between top-seeded Novak Djokovic and six-time (and defending) champion Rafael Nadal. In seconds, the court was flooded with bright sunshine that sparkled on the countless droplets still clinging everywhere.
It seemed to be both an omen and an emblem for Nadal, who was striving not only to win an unprecedented seventh championship at Roland Garros, but also hoping to keep Djokovic from winning his fourth consecutive Grand Slam title (something not accomplished in nearly 50 years). The latter was a somewhat urgent and by-no-means guaranteed matter, for it was Nadal himself whom Djokovic had hammered in the final of the three majors he won. This wasn't exactly the way Nadal might have imagined himself entering the record books.
Sloughing off demons that seem to have haunted him for most of the past year, and even in the first part of this match yesterday, Nadal played crisp, positive, purposeful tennis to wipe away the break of serve advantage with which Djokovic started the day. And, capitalizing on the curiously fitful nature of his rival's game (a carryover from the previous day), Nadal finally locked up the title, winning 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5. He wrote his name in the history books. We can only hope that the page doesn't turn so soggy as to become unreadable, because the most consistent performer in this ragged affair played out over two days was the rain.
The beginning yesterday was as bizarre as any we have seen in a Grand Slam final. Falling behind 0-40 in the first service game, Djokovic shrugged off all three break points but still ended up broken, via a backhand error. After a crisp hold by Nadal, Djokovic immediately got into trouble again. Nadal was simply whaling on the ball, and instead of offering ever-stiffer resistance—as is usually the case when these men begin escalating their games—Djokovic melted away. When Djokovic made a tentative, down-the-line backhand error to go down 0-30, John McEnroe wisely remarked: "Nadal already has Novak second-guessing his shot selection." Moments later, Djokovic was broken for the second time in the set.
Nadal went up 30-0 in the next game, and Djokovic looked utterly dispirited. It was at that point that the film broke. Nadal began making inexplicable errors, almost as if it was a sympathetic reaction of some kind. He basically gave the game away, allowed Djokovic a hold, and then Nadal was broken again. 3-all. It was as if they agreed that, having made a hash of it he first time around, they wanted to start over. Or, as my buddy Steve Tignor wrote yesterday, Djokovic still keeps a home in Nadal's head.
Nadal did not soon regain that superior form he had at the start, but he did claw his way to break point in the next, seventh game. Djokovic saved him the trouble of having to win the next point by tossing in a double fault. By then, it was clear that things just weren't going Nole's way. His body language was terrible; he repeatedly turned to the guest box to vent with angry words; he flung his arms in the air. He punished the soles of his shoes with the racquet. Apart from Djokovic's poor form and sour mood, the gambit that seemed to work for Nadal was the one he tested in their first two meetings this year: Instead of taking Nole's serve close to the baseline, he retreated. Djokovic played right into his hands by serving poorly. Nadal made that last break stick and served out the set.
Improbably, Djokovic double-faulted away another game to start the second set, and when Nadal survived a break point to win the next game, it looked like he just might run away with it. Djokovic uncharacteristically lacked energy, he moped and berated himself. The intermittent rain began to fall more steadily, but Nole hung in there and earned a break in the fourth game with a pretty topspin lob winner. Although he was still fighting himself (his racquet toss in the next game earned some boos from the crowed; later he would smash up his bench with the stick), it was clear that visions of a rout were premature.
The next rupture in this match of many breaks occurred in the seventh game, in which Djokovic managed to win just one point. Nadal held the next game to go up 5-3, at which point tournament referee Stefan Fransson stopped the match because of the rain. The interval was brief, and when they returned, Nadal wasted no time. He broke Djokovic to win the second set.
In no time, Nadal was up 2-0 in the third, thanks to his sixth break, by which time everyone in the crowd was once again making dinner plans. But Djokovic was getting his game dialed in. A break brought him back to even, after which he reeled off six consecutive games to lead, 1-0 in the fourth set—with a break in hand.
In the first two sets, Djokovic had managed to make just 48 percent of his first serves; in the third set, he put 75 percent into play and drastically cut down on unforced errors. It's amazing what that one-two punch can do. Previously, Djokovic had stayed in some remarkable rallies with Nadal, only to lose them—which is best described as the "Pain, No Gain" variant on the cliche. But through the third set, Djokovic reversed that trend. It was Nadal who played numerous great shots but more often than not lost the point.
Djokovic held to take a 2-0 lead in the fourth set. The rain was coming hard again—so hard that Nadal flipped a ball to Fransson and challenged him to see how wet it had become. One game later, after a very strong hold by Nadal, Fransson called it for the second time, and that was the end of it for the day.
When they resumed today, Nadal jumped all over Djokovic, and capitalized on a lucky let-cord forehand to break serve and level the match at 2-2. A strong game earned Nadal a quick hold, and once again Djokovic looked sluggish and unconfident. It continued the trend established yesterday, for if Djokovic was still in Nadal's head, he didn't really look comfortable residing there, not during Roland Garros.
But true to form, Djokovic once again marshaled his resources and found a way to hang in there. The contrast in the games of the two men on clay is interesting. Djokovic plays closer to the edge of danger; his shots are somehow just that much more angled, that much more penetrating. But he also makes that many more errors than Nadal, whose game is more muted, and reliant on defense. For the rest of the match, the real question was: Will Djokovic get the odd short or relatively weak ball that enables him to take over any given rally and end it with a winner often enough to break Nadal?
Nadal's answer was an emphatic "No!" These two play truly heroic points, and divvy them up pretty evenly. The difference when the rain ceased after a Nadal hold to 5-4 seemed to be the weight of history and Rafa's consistency. Djokovic had a fair chance to break when he hit a pair of forehand winners to level at 30-all with Nadal serving at 5-all. But he hit a wild forehand to lose the next point; it was the kind of lapse that you just can't afford against Nadal, who then forced a lob error to go up 6-5.
With his back to the wall of history and the sun suddenly dazzling in his eyes, Djokovic went up 30-15, two points from the haven of the tiebreaker. But he took a huge cut at a forehand and drove it out, and Nadal then tagged a forehand winner down the line off a semi-lob to arrive at match point. In one of the great anti-climaxes in Grand Slam history, Djokovic double-faulted away a game for the third time in the two-day match to end it.
The double fault was a fitting symbol of the main difference between the finalists, and the main difference between the Novak Djokovic of 2011 and this year's model. Djokovic simply isn't as consistent this year as last, while Nadal is, well, call him what you will, "King of Clay," or "The Spanish Bull," whatever. The bottom line is that nobody is as consistent as well as explosive on red clay as Rafa, the seven-time Roland Garros champ.