2018 FRENCH OPEN: Nadal Wins 17th Major (11th French Open) By Beating Dominic Thiem

As I predicted, Spaniard Rafael Nadal won his 11th French Open title in Paris on Sunday, his 17th major overall by defeating Dominic Thiem of Austria by the score of 6-4 6-3 6-2. Nadal won the tournament by only dropping a single set (in the quarterfinals of Diego Schwartzman of Argentina).

HOW THE FINAL WAS WON

Thiem started off the match very badly, losing the first 6 points in a row and was broken immediately. However, quite surprisingly he was able to break back and even the score at 2-all. Games went on sere until Thiem was serving at 4-5 when suddenly he payed a horrible game, going down 0-40 (triple set point for Nadal) and lost the next point to lose the first set. He also got broken almost immediately in the second set ad it was basically all down hill from there, with another straight sets win for Nadal.

ANALYSIS OF THE RESULT

Amazingly, Federer and Nadal have won the last 6 major titles, both over the age of 30. It means that Nadal, 32, is still only 3 major titles behind Federer's 20, and is 5 years younger (Federer tuns 37 in August). Today's win also means Nadal maintains the possibility (perhaps even the likelihood) of eventually evening and perhaps surpassing Federer's total of major singles titles. I would argue that the fact that Nadal is clearly the best on clay ever and has won 11 of his 17 titles on clay actually is an argument AGAINST the claim that Nadal is te G.O.A.T. It demonstrates that the source of his greatness is his dominance of clay (which is amazing) but the same cannot be said for either Grass (where he has 2 Wimbledon titles to Federer's 8) or hardcourts (where he has 4 major titles: 3 US Open and 1 Australian to Federer's 11: 5 US Open and 6 Australian).

The baton now switches to Federer to see if he can raise the G.O.A.T stakes again by winning Wimbledon, like he did last year. Only time will tell.