RAFAEL NADAL SAID he would “fight to keep going” after beating Casper Ruud in the final to win his 14th French Open title, despite being hampered by injury.
The record 22-time Grand Slam champion has been suffering from a chronic left foot problem and said earlier this week he was not sure how long he could continue and that every match at Roland Garros could be his last.
On the eve of the final, he even said he’d rather lose Sunday in exchange for a new foot.
“I don’t know what can happen in the future, but I’m going to keep fighting to try to keep going,” Nadal said after thrashing Ruud 6-3, 6-3, 6-0.
“For me, it’s incredible to play here. It’s an incredible feeling.”
Nadal’s victory was his 112th in the clay-court major, against only three defeats.
His participation at the tournament had been in doubt even earlier in the season after another absence due to a rib stress fracture.
Sunday’s victory came 17 years to the day since Nadal won on his Roland Garros debut in 2005.
The 36-year-old, the oldest man to win the French Open, paid tribute to his team for helping him continue at the top of the sport.
“I don’t know what I would do in terms of injuries if it wasn’t for the team, my family and everyone around me,” said Nadal.
“I would’ve already retired much before if it wasn’t for you… I never believed I would be here at 36, being competitive again, playing in the most important court of my career one more time in a final.
“It means everything to me. It means a lot of energy to try to keep going.”
Let the black card witch-hunt begin. Lead by the masters of cynical play Tyrone, big surprise!
Donegal not happy with it neither that’s their game plan out the window
Dublin won an All Ireland with it, Mayo did it to them the year before. Nobody is innocent here, Harte’s Tyrone got 3 All Irelands by playing in the rules of the game it’s up to the rest to put it up to them as all teams play with the same rules.
are you saying dublin won a championship with cynical play?
No, I’m saying Dublin played by the rules of the sport to win, Mayo did the same to get to two All Irelands and Tyrone did it to tie for Team of the Decade. You play to win or you don’t want it badly enough Paul.
I think the black card will effect Donegal and Tyrone more beacuse they play on the edge I dont agree with the blackcard anyway as if a incident is bad enough to send a player off its a redcard
Still think, given time, it will be positive. There’ll always be mistakes made, but you can see that body checking the third man runner has already been stamped out.
It was a poor decision from Goldrick, no getting away from it.
Coldrick made a mistake – get over it! The black card is a great idea for the first 65 minutes of a match – teams will still do what it takes to get a win so I can still see lads getting dragged down, etc. Being able to replace only the first 3 black cards helps in this regard.
You shouldn’t be able to replace a black carded player in the last 5 mins.
Yeah 2 people who argued against it before it was introduced saying the same thing after it has led to confusion.. can’t wait until further controversies effect your own teams and we then have you all backing the black card and not being critical of officials or rules at all as its only a tyrone and donegal thing obviously. ..
First Mickey heart, now Peter Canavan.
they see the writing on the wall daragh the two blackcards should have been redcards