A popular train of thought among many tennis observers before the quarter-final match on Wednesday between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal was that it was a shame that the two best players on clay in recent years were meeting at the last-eight stage rather than in the final as they had done in two of the previous three years.
It is likely Djokovic will reflect this morning, as he looks back at a third losing appearance in the French Open final in four years, on how he, too, wished it had been Nadal on the other side of the net in the final on the Philippe Chatrier Court rather than Stan Wawrinka.
Beating Nadal, in many ways, had been Djokovic’s goal as much as winning the tournament. Nadal, the winner of nine Roland Garros titles, had been the man who had denied Djokovic the previous three years in two finals and a 2013 semi-final, which went the Spaniard’s way 9-7 in the final set.
Conquering Nadal was expected to have the natural consequence of the world No 1 winning the one remaining major title missing from his trophy cabinet, especially as the only other opponent he had lost to on clay in the previous two years, Roger Federer, was already out of the tournament by the time he took to the court against Nadal.
Nadal was Djokovic’s big match and he treated it as such, playing some of the best tennis of his career in beating the Spaniard in straight sets.
It was a huge victory and the grin on Djokovic’s face afterwards told you he knew it too.
The problem was that it did not win him the tournament. He had two more matches to negotiate before he could become the eighth player to have a career grand slam.
Djokovic had been fortunate to survive a five-set semi-final, spread over two days, against Andy Murray.
While he did prevail he had struggled to match the levels reached in defeating Nadal.
Wawrinka has historically been a troublesome opponent for Djokovic, their past four meetings in majors having gone to five sets.
He was superb again yesterday, his fierce groundstrokes time and again leaving the Serbian stranded.
Nerves also played a part in Djokovic’s failure. Since September 2011 he has been waiting to add a French Open win to his victories in the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open to complete his career grand slam.
With Nadal gone this was his dream opportunity and he knew it.
He had been tentative in closing out the first set and maybe that was where Wawrinka smelled blood for the first time as, even though Djokovic went a set up, the Serb was on the back foot from there on.
This is not a catastrophic defeat for Djokovic, though his tears on court post match would suggest otherwise. He will have more chances to win the one he wants so badly.
He is still comfortably the best player in the world and that situation is unlikely to change any time soon with Federer and Nadal fading, Murray continually falling short in matches between the pair, and Wawrinka yet to demonstrate he is capable of consistently producing tennis of the quality he produced yesterday.
This will hurt but Djokovic throughout his career has demonstrated the ability to bounce back.
gcaygill@thenational.ae
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