The winner of 20 Majors will quickly forget his 2021 season, where he struggled with injuries and failed to even reach a single Major final for the first time since 2016.
Rafa has won two titles on his beloved clay this season, but even that arguably wasn’t enough to satisfy him as he failed to defend his crown at Roland Garros.
Nadal lost in the quarter-finals in Monte Carlo and Madrid to Andrey Rublev and Alexander Zverev, respectively, failing to match their pace and battling other young players in Barcelona and Rome.
During these two events, the Spaniard erased match points to lift the trophies. At the same time, he beat Novak Djokovic in the final in Rome to hold his 36th Masters 1000 crown and hoped to do more at Roland Garros.
In Paris, Rafael Nadal won five matches but only reached the final for the fourth time since 2005. He lost to Novak Djokovic by a score of 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2, in four hours and 11 minutes, in an epic semi-final clash.
The Mallorcan champion thus experienced his third defeat at Roland Garros and the second against Novak, who had also beaten him in the 2015 quarter-finals. It was one of the greatest matches of all time, with the two tennis giants. pushing each other into their entrenchments from start to finish.
Nadal lost to Djokovic after more than four hours at RG
After his loss, Rafa said he could not go on winning Roland Garros forever, and that he was well aware that it is unrealistic to hope to achieve as many as 18 or 20 titles in Paris.
“My chances of winning Roland-Garros are not forever. In our sport, you have to admit both victory and defeat. I know that I cannot win 15, 18 or 20 Roland Garros crowns, and that is not a disaster.
I’m sad. I lost the most important tournament for me, but it was just a loss on the tennis court. Tomorrow I’ll be home with my family, and that’s good too.
This is not a time to rejoice or to make a drama of it; it’s somewhere in the middle, ”Rafael Nadal said.
