King Nadal rules again

A year ago, when Rafael Nadal withdrew from his third-round match at the French Open with a wrist injury, bringing an end to his participation in a tournament he had won nine times since 2005, most were predicting the end of the road for inarguably the greatest clay court player of all time and one of the greatest to have picked up a tennis racket.

A year later, in one of the greatest sporting accomplishments on the most demanding surface tennis can offer, Nadal completed his most dominant performance at Roland Garros by ramming through Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets yesterday.

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Far from being done, Nadal won the 2017 French Open without losing a single set and in the process became the only tennis player, male or female, to win 10 titles at a single Grand Slam. The win also propelled him above Pete Sampras to second spot in the all-time Grand Slam titles list with 15, behind great rival Roger Federer, who has 18.

Nadal lost only 35 games across seven matches. To put that in perspective, Wawrinka, comfortably the second-best player this year at the French Open, lost 102 games over the course of seven matches.