The Crowd Could Only Mourn as King of Clay Rafael Nadal’s Paris Swansong Became a Sad Last Dance, Writes OLIVER HOLT
They streamed out of the metro station at Porte d’Auteuil, past the battalions of police cars, down the tree-lined avenue, past the Jardin des Serres, and into the grounds of Roland Garros to see the king in his kingdom one last time.
With its four-year cycle, it is inevitable that much of the narrative surrounding each edition of the Olympics will concern farewells. Yet, at these Paris Games, nowhere has the sadness of the last dance hit quite like it has in the tennis.
The careers of the great players revolve around the Grand Slam tournaments more than the Olympics, but events have conspired to suggest that two of the giants of the last 20 years will say their goodbyes to tennis here in Paris.
On Sunday, many made the pilgrimage to the west of the capital, steeling themselves to watch what they feared would be Andy Murray’s final match, his first-round men’s doubles tie alongside Dan Evans against Japanese duo Taro Daniel and Kei Nishikori. It turned out Murray was not quite ready to say goodbye.
Yesterday was different, though, because now they were coming to say goodbye to the greatest player who has ever graced these courts. They were coming to bid farewell to Rafael Nadal, who won the French Open 14 times on the red clay here.
Nadal is 38 and dominated here like no tennis player has dominated anywhere else. Even Margaret Court only won the Australian Open 11 times, and that was in an era when many of the big names did not travel to play in Melbourne. The Spaniard is so popular in Paris that he is regarded as an honorary Frenchman, which helps to explain the prominent part he played in the climax to the Games’ opening ceremony on Friday evening, carrying the Olympic Flame from the Trocadero down the Seine on a speedboat.
No one wants to think that these Olympics will be the end, but Nadal has said that 2024 will be his final year, and he already lost in the first round of the French Open here to Alexander Zverev a couple of months ago. And where could be a better place for him to say goodbye? Known as the King of Clay for everything he has achieved here, this was always the place he was happiest. It is the venue with which he will always be associated.
There was extra poignancy about what happened here yesterday, too, because the vagaries of the Olympic draw meant Nadal was paired against rival Novak Djokovic for their second-round match on Philippe Chatrier Court, where Nadal has tasted so much glory. That, too, marked the end of an era, the last time two of the Big Three men’s tennis players who dominated the sport for more than two decades would ever play against each other in a top competition.
Roger Federer is already gone, of course, and Nadal has played only fleetingly over the past couple of years as he battled a series of injuries. A golden age of men’s tennis is drawing ever nearer to a close. Nadal and Djokovic played their first match against each other at the French Open in 2006, and now they were to play their last.
Djokovic is the sport’s great iconoclast, the destroyer of idols, the man who gatecrashed the Federer-Nadal love-in and then outlasted them and surpassed their records. He has 24 Grand Slam titles now, compared to 20 for Federer and 22 for Nadal, but is yet to win Olympic gold. It is the only thing missing in his gilded career.
Those who could find a seat on the court were treated to an impossibly beautiful tableau – a brilliant sun, an azure sky, red clay, and two kings in the red shirts and white shorts of their national kit facing each other across the net at one of the great venues of tennis.
For a time, it felt as if it would be a humiliation. For a time, as Djokovic dragged Nadal across the court in a sad spectacle for much of the contest, it seemed the King of Clay would end his reign in ignominy. But Nadal, with his relentless spirit and indomitable will, fought back, clawing his way into the match.
In the end, it was not enough. Djokovic triumphed, but the scoreline was secondary. The crowd rose to their feet, not just to applaud the victor, but to honor the vanquished, to bid farewell to the King of Clay. Tears flowed freely, not just from the fans, but from Nadal himself, as he waved one last time to his adoring Parisian crowd. The king had danced his last dance, and the crowd could only mourn.
