Rafael Nadal’s French Open triumphs: Then and Now

Rafael Nadal has added insurance to his place in the history books of not just tennis, but sport in general, last night. He has accomplished something that even he admits he could not have dreamt of when he won his first French Open title at the Roland Garros, let alone as a young kid who started playing tennis at 4.

As the world marvels at Rafael Nadal’s record-extending 11th French Open title, let us take a step back in time, and look at things in perspective. Rafael Nadal is now the first man, in any era, and only the second player ever to win a particular Grand Slam Single’s title 11 times; yes, ELEVEN times! A lot has happened in the sporting world between his first and eleventh titles. Heroes have emerged and subsided, new formats have been introduced, history has been rewritten, and controversies have been created that shook up the entire sporting world. History changing events have occurred across sports, but it is difficult to take stock of all of them in one single article, so we look at a few sports and few events that highlight just how long back in the sporting context it was that Nadal triumphed at Roland Garros for the first time, and how much has happened until now, when he has won his 11th title there.

As a testament to the remarkable nature of this feat, in terms of both longevity and sustenance of abilities, let us look at what’s transpired in the sporting world across this timeline, from June 5, 2005, to June 10, 2018. We take a look at 5 sports and sporting events: cricket, football, the Olympic Games, basketball, and of course, tennis. What I have done is handpicked two to three events or timelines within this thirteen year period that does not accentuate Nadal’s achievement, but does justice to it. For a player who has struggled with injuries throughout his ongoing career, it would only be fair to look at this feat in the light it deserves, by drawing comparisons with what his contemporaries across sports have done while he has continued to thump his competition at the red clay in Paris.

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Cricket

The Indian Premier league was yet to make its debut. To understand the gravity of this, note that Star India won just the media rights for the IPL for a whopping INR 16,347.50 crores in last year’s media rights auction.

Mohammad Amir (born April 1992) became a teenager, made his test debut, got caught for spot-fixing, served a five-year ban and was reselected for the Pakistan National side.

Virat Kohli got selected for the India Under-19 team and led the one-day team to victory at the ICC Under-19 World Cup in 2008. He is currently India’s captain in all forms of international cricket (senior) and holds the second position in the list of most ODI centuries in the history of the game (only 14 shy of Tendulkar’s all-time record).

Football

No player had won the Ballon d’Or more than 3 times in their entire careers, since the inception of the award in 1956, in its 50-year history until then (2005). Two certain gentlemen by the names of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi who are both currently active, have now already won it 5 times each, in the next 13 years!

Zinedine Zidane played his last football match and was sent off, losing to Italy in the 2006 World Cup Final. He then became a special adviser to his last club, Real Madrid in 2010, and would go on to manage its B team, Real Madrid Castilla. He also managed to manage Real Madrid after Rafael Benitez’s unceremonious firing. He guided the club to three straight Champions League titles from 2016-18 and stepped down as the coach of Madrid. All of this from French Open numbers 1 to 11 for Nadal.

Olympic Sports

Usain Bolt made his Olympic debut at the 2008 Beijing Games, setting the world on fire with Golds in 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 m relay events (later disqualified due to a teammate’s doping disqualification in the 4 x 100 m relay event). He went on to repeat or ‘three-peat’ this success and became the first athlete ever to win the 100 m and 200 m double in three successive Olympic Games. He has now retired from track and field competitions.

India ended its nearly 100-year old wait for an individual Gold at the Olympic Games when Abhinav Bindra won the Gold medal in the 10 m air rifle event. Incidentally, P. V. Sindhu continued to rise up the fame ladder from winning the Gold medal at the 51st National ‘School’ Games in India in 2005 to winning the Silver at the 2016 Rio Games falling to Carolina Marin of Spain in the women’s singles event!

Basketball

The starting five of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, and JaVale McGee of the Golden State Warriors, the team that recently won its third NBA Championship in 4 years, were all yet to play an NBA game in their lives.

LeBron James jumped ship to the Miami Heat, led them to 4 straight NBA Finals and 2 titles, came back home to the Cleveland Cavaliers, led them to 4 straight NBA Finals and their first title in franchise history, and is now all set to become a free-agent again with an option to opt-out of his current contract and the entire basketball world watching. He is the first player since the NBA expanded to more than 14 teams to make it to 8 straight Finals.

Tennis

Only two men had won more than 10 Grand Slam titles in the Open Era: Bjorn Borg and Pete Sampras, since 1969, a total period of 36 years. Since then, three men have breached the 10-Slam barrier, with 2 of them breaching the 15-Slam barrier (first two ever), and one of them, an age-defying wonder having breached the 20-Slam barrier. And yes, Roger Federer (20), Rafael Nadal (17) and Novak Djokovic (12) and still very much active. Again, only two men (Rod Laver and Andre Agassi) had completed the Career Grand Slam in the Open Era, when Nadal won his first French Open in 2005. All three of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are now part of that illustrious list.

Since computerized rankings began in women’s singles tennis in 1975, the WTA had had 15 World number 1’s till 2005, a period of 30 years. The next 13 years has already seen 14 women become number 1 in the world (some of them had first achieved that feat before 2005, but have been number 1 at some point after 2005 nonetheless).