4 greatest French Open finals of all-time

#3 Gaston Gaudio vs Guillermo Coria (2004)

2004 French Open Winner Gaston Gaudio

Since 2005, Rafael Nadal has dominated the French Open and such has been the aura of invincibility of the great Spaniard that we have to go all the way back to 2005 for the last 5-setter at the French Open final.

The 2004 French Open final between two Argentine tennis players, Gaston Gaudio and Guillermo Coria was memorable in many ways. Guillermo Coria was the favourite on the Parisian dirt, because for a while, between Gustavo Kuerten’s hat-trick of French Open titles and Nadal’s Undecima, 11 French Open titles, he was the best clay court player in the world. He had demonstrated that in emphatic fashion in the semi-final, thrashing Britain’s Tim Henman in four sets, even bagelling him in the fourth set. Gaston Gaudio swept past fellow Argentine and Wimbledon runner-up David Nalbandian in straight sets in the other semi-final.

The final was a topsy-turvy affair with Coria thrashing Gaudio in the first two sets including notching up a bagel in the first set. Gaudio looked completely out of sorts and it looked like it would be a cakewalk for Coria. Spectators would have probably thought that it was a waste of their hard money seeing a lopsided French Open final between two first-time finalists. But they were proved wrong over the course of the next two and a half hours as Gaudio produced one of the greatest comebacks in a Grand Slam final in recent history, not losing his serve in the remaining three sets. The final scoreline read 0–6, 3–6, 6–4, 6–1, 8–6 in Gaudio's favour.