Roland Garros 2014, Men's Singles Final: Nadal's record, and Djokovic's dream

The final match at Roland Garros 2014 will be a competition between two of the top tennis players of the modern era. Nadal is aiming for a record 9th Roland Garros title, while Djokovic is determined to win a career Grand Slam.

Roger Federer is on the other side of his career. It has been a long time since fans have seen a real “express train” in the eye-catching matches with his great rival Nadal. Andy Murray was always expected to help tennis not only be a playground for two people. But then the British No. 1 gradually declined and it is unknown when he will regain his peak form.

New classic Nadal - Djokovic

Nadal and Djokovic, talent and fate have paired them to become a new classic pair to replace the Nadal - Federer era.

While Nadal defeated Murray very easily after 3 sets with the scores of 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, Nole needed 4 sets to say goodbye to Ernest Gulbis's dream of the final with an interesting series of scores: 6-3, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. If he wins, Nadal will own the 9th Roland Garros championship trophy in his career - a record that no male tennis player has achieved, extending his "huge" record in this field with 66 wins and only 1 loss (against Robin Soderling in 2009). And another important milestone is that Nadal will equal the record of legendary Pete Sampras with 14 Grand Slam championships, getting very close to Roger Federer's record (17 titles). Going into this match, Nadal had overtaken Ivan Lendl's record of 20 Grand Slam finals, second only to record holder Federer (24).

As for Djokovic, if he wins, he will have a complete collection of all 4 Grand Slam titles, a long-standing dream of the former world No. 1. In the Open era, only Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have achieved that feat. This will be the 7th major title in the Serbian tennis player's career, on par with the achievements of legends such as Stefan Edberg, his coach Boris Becker. And most importantly, Djokovic will officially dethrone Nadal to regain the throne on the ATP rankings, returning to No. 1. Going into this match, Djokovic has become the 6th tennis player in history to reach the final of each Grand Slam tournament at least 2 times. Previously, only Ken Rosewall, Ivan Lendl, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Nadal have done this.

Can you overthrow it, Nole?

In the last 3 encounters at Grand Slam tournaments: the 2013 US Open final, the 2013 Roland Garros semi-final, the 2012 Roland Garros final, Djokovic was defeated by Nadal. This is the 7th encounter between the two tennis players in Grand Slam finals. In total, Nole and Nadal met 42 times, the Spanish tennis player is slightly superior with 22 wins, 19 losses. No pair in ATP history has ever met each other so many times. Currently, this pair is only inferior to the legendary pair of women's tennis Christ Evert and Martina Navratilova. The two former world No. 1s have met 80 times throughout their careers.

Nadal has always been the “king of clay” even though in the ATP 1000 tournaments before Roland Garros, he showed inconsistent performance and caused a lot of disappointment to the fans. But Djokovic has also improved a lot on this court. Moreover, Nole’s desire to win is probably stronger than Nadal’s because while his opponent has 8 titles on this land, he has yet to taste glory.

According to Thethaovanhoa.vn