Will the King of Clay Rafael Nadal reign supreme at Roland Garros?

Although the ever-popular French Open was suspended due to the unpredictable global coronavirus pandemic, it was eventually announced that the clay-court Grand Slam would get underway in November. The Stade Roland Garros finally re-opened its doors on Sept. 21(for qualifying), having been pushed back from the original date of May 24.

But, regardless, we’re sure it will be worth the wait!

Tennis fans everywhere have waited with bated breath to see 12-time champion Rafael Nadal take the court this year. In 2019, Nadal claimed his showstopping 12th French Open title, further maintaining his near flawless record when playing at Roland Garros. The final score stood at 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 against Dominic Thiem, playing out over three hours. We’re sure that many had placed their bets on the King of Clay—perhaps online with Betdaq—and you might want to know the chances of Nadal puling it out again this year.

Read on as we discuss Nadal’s playing history, and make your predictions for the 2020 tournament!

Nadal is known to be the best clay-court player in the history of tennis, and his stats undoubtedly support this. So far, the Spaniard has won a total of 85 titles in his singles career, complimented nicely by 11 titles from his less-frequent doubles events. Not only that, but the his total of 12 French Open titles is an even more impressive feat when you consider that he has played it only 15 times to date.

The 2019 victory came as the third French Open win for Nadal in as many years, following nine consecutive wins between 2005 and 2014. So in terms of following one year’s win with another, that is definitely a firm possibility for this well-rounded player.

Another noteworthy tennis event was the US Open, which took place from the end of August to the second week of this month. Many fans would have expected to see the impressive Spaniard bouncing across the hard courts of New York, but they would have been unfortunately disappointed as Nadal ended up withdrawing from the competition—deciding not to defend the most recent of his four titles. It’s thought that one of the reasons behind this choice was merely down to the proximity between the US and French Open, taking place a week apart and also 6,000km apart.

Nadal has a chance to tie the all-time Grand Slam singles record because 20-time winner Roger Federer won’t be competing at Roland Garros this year. Unluckily for Federer, this is mostly due to an arthroscopic operation on his knee following an injury, which is set to keep him off the courts for the rest of the year.

However, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic has confirmed that he will be arriving on the clay courts, ready and willing to take on the tournament’s reigning champion. Djokovic definitely poses a potential threat for Nadal, having beaten Britain’s Andy Murray in the 2016 French Open final. Nevertheless, Nadal has seen off the Serb on numerous occasions—including in the final in both 2012 and 2014. With this in mind, it doesn’t seem out of the question that Nadal vs. Djokovic could see the former coming out on top once more.

Another contender and possible obstacle for both Nadal and Djokovic is world No. 3 Dominic Thiem, who stands as the joint-second favourite to win alongside Djokovic. Having already beaten Nadal once this year in reaching the Australian Open final, Thiem has also made the latter stages of the French Open in his last four attempts—although he ended up losing to Djokovic and Nadal in the 2016 and 2017 semifinals, respectively. He fell short to Nadal yet again in both the 2018 and 2019 finals—the former finishing 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, and the latter being a slightly closer 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1. With Thiem now edging closer to Nadal’s prowess, perhaps his next run-in with the star could end in a victory.

With everything to play for, it seems fairly likely that Nadal could bag himself that fourth consecutive French Open title, as well as matching Federer at 20 career Grand Slam victories.