Playing well against Rafa at Roland Garros only makes him play better

At 18, Jannik Sinner had won the NextGen ATP Finals. At 19, he had made himself the youngest player in the Top 75. He had beaten Alexander Zverev to reach the quarterfinals in his first trip to Roland Garros. And he had even garnered praise from John McEnroe for his eyesight—a high compliment from a man who knew about picking up the ball early.

The consensus was that the young Italian, with his precision timing and nonchalant power, was a future Grand Slam champion. But if there were any lingering doubts about his talent, Sinner could put them to rest on Tuesday, when he entered the sport’s ultimate crucible, a match against Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros. Sinner didn’t need to beat the 12-time champion, of course; but if there were holes in his game that no one had noticed, Nadal would surely be the one to expose them on this court.

Sinner didn’t win. He didn’t a win a set. Yet even in his 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-1 defeat, he played well enough, and pushed Nadal for long enough, to confirm his future-star status.

Sinner also learned a lesson that all of Nadal’s opponents must learn: When you play well against him at Roland Garros, it only helps him play better.

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“Sinner is a player who has a lot of power,” Nadal said. We saw what he could do with the ball from the start. Sinner held serve at love in his opening service game, reached break point at 2-2, and then broke Rafa at 5-5 and served for the first set. During that time, Sinner hit winners from both wings and to both corners, sent Nadal lunging back and forth across the baseline, and showed off his hands by winning cat-and-mouse points at net. He was dictating.

And then, when he stepped up to serve at 6-5, everything changed. Sinner suddenly made a poor choice and lost a point on a bad drop shot. Then he hit a forehand wide, one of the only routine balls he missed all set.

While Sinner’s level was dropping, Nadal’s was rising. For the first time, he seemed to have found a groove from the baseline—all of those Sinner rockets had helped his timing. Rafa hit a backhand pass to go up 15-40, and broke with a vintage down-the-line forehand winner and a celebratory leap. Nadal was just as good, and even more aggressive, in the tiebreaker. He won one point with a smash, one with a backhand volley winner, and another with a forehand volley winner. Sinner had played a brilliant set, and had come way with nothing to show for it. All he had done was help Nadal find his A game.

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The pattern continued in the second set. Sinner went up an early break on a rifle-shot forehand, only to see Nadal take the break right back from him in the next game. Again, Sinner’s level dropped; he started his service game with two errors. And again, Nadal’s level rose; he held for 3-3 with a head-fake and a flicked crosscourt forehand that had Sinner going entirely the wrong way. When Nadal broke again and held for a two-set lead, the air went out of the Italian. Until that time, he had played with confidence and hadn’t shrunk from the moment or the opponent; he didn’t seem to be competing for moral victories. By the third, though, like so many of Nadal’s opponents at Roland Garros over the years, Sinner was a broken man.

This match finished at 1:30 in the morning, and Nadal said that the cold weather prevented him from getting his normal spin on the ball, and made it difficult to move Sinner back and forth the way he would have liked. But he said he was happy with the way he warmed up and loosened up, and in the final game he hit a 106-m.p.h. forehand, his hardest of the match. With the win, Rafa is into his 13th semifinal at Roland Garros; he hasn’t lost one yet.

By the end of this match, it was Nadal who was in control, and Sinner who was lunging across the baseline—the tables had turned completely. What can you do when the guy across the net takes your best stuff, and uses it to play better than you?