Nadal to Win French Open
Nadal has won ten titles as Roland Garros. No player has won these many Grand Slam titles at a single tournament. We are anticipating that he will win the trophy again this year. He won in his debut in 2005 and he has only been beaten twice on the Paris Clay.
Former Wimbledon winner Cash explained that Nadal is fast and can go on forever and this is the things that set him apart from other tennis players. His speed and athleticism are phenomenal. He has great footwork on the clay and you will hardly seem anybody move so fast on clay.
Nadal starts slowly in Grand Slams and builds his momentum along the way. For the French Opens, he has not yet built his momentum and he has plenty of room for improvement. We believe that he is currently settling down and he will do better in upcoming games.
The reason why Nadal is always winning his games is because he always stands further and further every year from the baseline.
In 2015, he stood at an average 3.24m, in 2017 it was 4.39m and this season it is 28 cm further. Why is this advantageous to him? This makes it easy for him to put the ball back in play each time. Last year, he made 89% of first serve returns. This makes it easy for him to take big swings at the ball hitting his first serve return at a decent 113km/h and this is faster than Alexander Zverev.
Nadal is a favourite in the French Open and the reason here is that he has been found to be more dominant at clay court tennis compared to other athletes. It is near to impossible for one to win a set let alone a match against Nadal. He is almost turning 32 years old. He has already won 56 clay court titles and 10 French Open Championships. Next week he might add the eleventh.
Nadal has won 56.7% of his second-serve points on clay. Last year he raised the percentage to 66.4%. For pro players, anything that is better than break even on the second serve is said to be good. If you are still not convinced how good Rafael Nadal is, he won 52.2% of points whilst returning over the last 52 weeks. This is 17% more than his nearest rival. This is why Nadal is referred to as the King of Clay!
