Anwar Ibrahim (Cairo)
Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal did not imagine, while watching the Champions League final match between his favorite team Real Madrid and Liverpool, that he would be on a date with the crowning of the Royal Club in the 14th edition in its history of this tournament, at the Stade de France in the French capital. Paris .. But this actually happened on the ground while he was sitting in the stadium stands to follow the European final, and it seems that what happened to Real was a good omen for him, as hardly several days passed, except that he himself was at the forefront of the global sports scene, and this time On the tennis courts in the Roland Garros complex in Paris, to practice his favorite hobby in winning this French championship, which falls within the Grand Slam tournaments, and fight in it from its inception until he finally won its cup, and for the 14th time, as if his tongue was saying: Just as Real was a champion of the Champions League 14, I am also a 14-time Roland Garros champion.
Nadal’s history in the Roland Garros tournament, as well as in other Grand Prix tennis tournaments, is very honorable, and despite his relatively large age “36 years”, he managed to advance to fourth place in the world rankings after defeating the Norwegian Casper Ruud in the final match of the Roland Garros tournament. 3/0 (6/3, 6/3, 6/0), in a match that lasted two hours and twenty minutes, and only the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who was first in the rankings, who Nadal managed to oust in the quarter-finals of the tournament, and the Russian Daniil Medvedev in the world rankings. The second world number one and German Alexander Zverev, who was also eliminated from the semi-finals, after being injured against Spanish “Matador” Nadal.
Since 2005, Nadal has monopolized the French championship and has become the most winning tennis player in it, to the extent that the French administration of this tournament erected him in the Roland Garros sports complex, last year, a stainless steel statue weighing 800 kilograms.
Nadal’s victories continued in this tournament from 2005, then 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2020, 2022, a record that no one has reached since the start of this prestigious French championship in 1891. The total of Nadal’s victories in the matches of this tournament since he started participating in it is 112, and he has lost only 3 times.
Just as Nadal excelled on clay “sand” courts, he also excelled on grass and hard courts, but he excelled more in sandy, and Nadal collected throughout his long history with tennis 22 titles, (two titles in Wimbledon, two titles in the Australian Open, and 4 titles in the championship The US Open) in addition to the 14 titles he won at Roland Garros.