The French Open Is Really the Nadal Invitational
Rumor has it that tennis arbitrage players via our benevolent sponsors -- Bovada and Sportbet -- cover some serious bar bills in this corner of cyberspace.
That concept makes sense in damn near every case except when Rafael Nadal takes up shop at the French Open.
Sure, touts will try to insert a bitta doubt and drama into the deliberations, but really ... arbing Nadal?
The Spanish master of clay just picked up his 12th singles title at Roland Garros.
El Duderino, a title sanctioned as acceptable by Jeff Lebowski ...
... actually lost a set to Austrian Dominic Thiem in the final -- 6-3 5-7 6-1 6-1 -- but as the scores after that indicate, all it did was piss him off on the way to running his overall record at Roland Garros to 92-2.
Thiem's big moment was his semi-final victory over Novak Djokovic, which is definitely an accomplishment. However, challenging Nadal on clay is a level harder.
Due to weather interruptions, Thiem was making his fourth appearance in four days. Still, 24 hours after downing the World No 1, it really didn't seem like this made much difference.
Thiem threw everything he had at Nadal, but once the Spaniard shifted into warp drive, it was all over.
From 2005 until now, Nadal's met six opponents in the French Open final. The only two who got the better of him were ...
- Robin Söderling in 2009: 6-2, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6
- Stan Wawrinka in 2015: 4–6, 6–4, 6–3, 6–4
Nadal's 33 now and in excellent shape. No telling how long he can keep his spectacular record going, but for the time being at Roland Garros, arb him at your peril.