French Open Wrap-Up

Rafael Nadal (Spain) and Justine Henin-Hardenne (Belgium), two natural, experienced clay court players won the 2005 French Open titles. They both dominated the clay court season with no defeats; Nadal won24 matches in a row, and Henin-Hardenne 25. It was Nadal's first grand slam victory (matching Mats Wilander's feat of winning theFrench Open on the first try) and Henin-Hardenne's fourth (2003 French, 2003 US Open, 2004 Australian, 2005 French) matching Venus Williams four.

Nadal def. Puerta 6-7(3),6-3, 6-1, 7-5. This was a
surprisingly good match. Puerta is a good player but
Nadal is just an insanely good offensively defensive
player on clay. They both play left-handed though
Nadal does "everything else" with his right hand.
Puerta had 3 set points in the 4th set to even the match,
which would have been his 3rd consecutive 5-set match
in the tournament.

Henin-Hardenne def. Pierce 6-1, 6-1. After being
unable to miss in her demolition of World No. 1
Lindsay Davenport in the quarters, Mary Pierce
simply ran out of gas in front of her Gallic
compatriots and was never really able to impose
her game upon the impressive Belgian.

Nadal is now ranked #3 in the world, behind Federer(1) and Safin(2). Henin-Hardene is #7, behind Davenport, Sharapova, Mauresmo, Serena Williams, Kuznetsova and Dementieva.
Wimbledon starts in two weeks on June 20th!