Rafael Nadal's first French Open title, according to Toni Nadal, his opponents, and Rafa himself

New York Times

a day ago

ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — Twenty years ago this weekend, a 19-year-old Spanish tennis player named Rafael Nadal won the French Open for the first time, at the first attempt.
By the time his career ended almost two decades later, Nadal had amassed 14 French Open titles, posting a Roland Garros record of 112 wins and four defeats. The tournament organisers built a statue of him before he had finished winning titles there. And at the start of this year's French Open, 15,000 people gathered on Court Philippe-Chatrier to celebrate one of the greatest achievements in sport.
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But in June 2005, Nadal was a richly talented teenager, with the promise of a successful career but not yet an all-time stint that would help define men's tennis in the 2000s.
This is the story of how, across two weeks, Nadal went from hopeful to champion, setting in motion his unprecedented dominance.
Told by those who saw it first-hand:
All via interviews, except for news conferences from Nadal and Gasquet, and a voice note from Carillo.
Although Nadal had never competed at the French Open, having been injured the two previous editions, he was a pre-tournament favorite as a debutant.
As would become familiar, he had cut a swathe through the clay-court season, winning titles in Barcelona, Monte Carlo and Rome in the build-up. During the Monte Carlo Masters, the previous year's Roland Garros runner-up and clay specialist Guillermo Coria said: 'Nadal is the best player on this surface in the world.'
Roger Federer, the world No. 1, who had won four of the previous seven Grand Slams, was expected to lift the trophy, but Nadal, ranked No. 5, wasn't far behind.
Rafael Nadal: It was the first tournament I approached with the feeling that something special could happen. It was the first Slam where I was one of the candidates.
So I was nervous, 100 percent. But at the same time, when you are 18, you have plenty of energy, and in some way, you are less worried about everything. You have this fresh mentality about not thinking much about the negative things that can happen.
Toni Nadal: When we got to Roland Garros, after Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome, I thought Rafael was maybe favorite. Him or Federer.
Benito Perez-Barbadillo: I'd known Rafa well for a couple of years, and when he arrived at the French Open, he was in a unique position. I can't think of anybody else at a major who has arrived in a position where they were playing somewhere for the first time and were basically the favorite. But you just never know until they do it.
He wasn't scared, though. He'd be in the locker room jumping around, he never stopped moving. When you put him with the media room, he was shy — but in the locker room, he was a different person.
In the first round, Nadal was drawn against Lars Burgsmüller, the world No. 96 from Germany. Wearing three-quarter length shorts and a green singlet, Nadal powered his way to a 6-1, 7-6(4), 6-1 win on his first and last appearance on the old No. 1 Court. In his first point at Roland Garros, some of the future staples take over: the bullet inside-in forehand followed by the nerveless smash.
Burgsmüller is now a radiologist treating cancer patients in Essen, Germany.
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Lars Burgsmüller: I knew it wasn't a good draw. Already, people were saying he could be one of the best in the world. We'd played on a hard court before, but I remember at Roland Garros, his balls were so heavy. And I remember I had to really win a point, not only once, but two or three times.
He's the best in defense and even when you think you've won the point, he is still passing you. My goal was to keep the balls short, but sometimes I was rushing too much. But then I knew if I stayed on the baseline and tried to grind and play long rallies, I'd have even less chance. So I tried to get to the net.
Afterwards, I thought he could do well in the tournament, but I didn't think that he was going to win the whole thing.
I still have the DVD of the match, but I've only watched a few minutes. Occasionally, my kids (three boys aged 15, 13 and nine) try to watch it on YouTube, and they are like, 'Look, it's daddy,' and then after five minutes they find something different to watch.
They're like: 'Why are you making so many mistakes?'
In the second round, Nadal eased past Belgium's Xavier Malisse, a 2002 Wimbledon semifinalist ranked No. 46, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4. Nadal was feeling comfortable on the Paris clay — his main challenge was fighting a penchant for the city's chocolate croissants.
His next match looked a lot tougher: Richard Gasquet. The pair had come through the junior ranks together and were seen as the joint 'next big things' in the sport. They'd just played an extremely close three-setter in Monte Carlo, won by Nadal, but Gasquet had beaten Federer earlier in that tournament and frequently got the better of Nadal when they were juniors.
Nadal ended up thrashing Gasquet 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in a match that set the pair on hugely divergent paths. Gasquet ended up losing all 18 ATP matches against his one-time rival and while he had a successful career by most standards, he was never a serious contender to win a Grand Slam.
During his Roland Garros farewell ceremony a couple of weeks ago, Nadal said of that Gasquet win: 'From that day, I truly understood what Roland Garros meant.'
The match gave a glimpse into another Nadal truism: when it got hot in Paris, making his topspin forehand kick high off the clay, his opponents may as well have not turned up.
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Toni Nadal: As soon as we saw the draw, the thing that stood out was that we have to play against Gasquet in the third round. We were a little afraid. The French journalists talked a lot about this match — it was more difficult for Gasquet than for us in the end, they put a lot of pressure on Gasquet.
Gasquet played not too good, the match was too big for him.
Perez-Barbadillo: Beating Richard was crucial because he was one of Rafa's biggest rivals. As a kid, he always used to lose against Richard, so he was very nervous before that match. But then he handled it very well and he won easily.
Richard Gasquet: I remember it was really hot on the court. I played him a month or so earlier in Monaco, a big match.
Then I played here against him again and he was different, much better than in Monaco. The bounce was really high. It was very tough to play. He was just better.
When I finished the match, I remember my last coach here, I told him he would win Roland Garros this year. I wouldn't imagine he would win 13 times more, but I knew he was going to win the tournament. He was just playing unbelievable. I was a bit surprised.
Perez-Barbadillo: We'd wanted to do some pictures with Rafa for a booklet for the ATP during the tournament, but he kept saying, 'Let's do it if I beat Gasquet. If I win that match, then we do whatever you want.'
And we did a little breakfast with some media, near the Eiffel Tower, and I remember there's a picture of him with some croissants and the tower behind him. To do something like that now during a tournament would be very strange.
Next up for Nadal was another Frenchman, the skilful No. 23 seed Sebastien Grosjean, who had been ranked as high as No. 4 and had been a semifinalist at three of the four majors. Their match started on a damp day, and Nadal found himself having to deal with an extremely hostile crowd when the umpire, Damian Steiner, refused to check a mark at the start of the second set.
The match was stopped for 10 minutes as the crowd jeered and whistled, affecting Nadal's concentration. He gave up a break to lose the second set. Rain then stopped play overnight, with the match level at one set all. The players came back out on a much warmer day and Nadal polished off the victory 6-4, 3-6, 6-0, 6-3. He said in a post-match news conference that: 'The crowd did not behave well at all, but this is France and what they did was a silly thing.'
When footage of the incident resurfaced during Indian Wells three years ago, Nadal was asked about it in a news conference and said: 'I remember that match and for a moment, it was unplayable.'
Sebastien Grosjean: The crowd were not against Rafa. They were against the umpire. I was looking at the mark, I wanted him to go down, he didn't want to go. And then it's tough to control a crowd when they start screaming. You can try to calm them down, but you're not going to do it.
Toni Nadal: It was a tough moment, but nothing more than this. And for Rafa to get through it was important. Grosjean knew that, within the rules, the umpire did not need to come down.
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Grosjean: The match itself, the first day was easier because of the weather. It was a little bit heavier, so Rafa's ball didn't bounce that high. But once we started again the day after, it was a different match. We knew at that time that Rafa was special.
And playing him on that big Chatrier court, he can attack, he can defend because he has so much space to move. He loves the court, he loves the balls and he was forcing you to give 100 percent effort every time. Playing Rafa on clay is the biggest challenge in the sport but the atmosphere on Chatrier was great — it always is with a French player.
If you want to beat him, you have to suffer. To win a point. To win a game. To win a set. It was almost impossible and that's why over the years, he was winning matches before starting the match. The other guy would be thinking that it's going to be impossible.
A far more routine quarterfinal followed, with Nadal hammering compatriot David Ferrer, the No. 20 seed and a specialist on the surface, 7-5, 6-2, 6-0.
That win set up the semifinal everyone had been hoping for: Federer against Nadal. The pair had met twice before, with Nadal winning in straight sets in Miami the previous year, before Federer got his revenge by beating his rival in five sets at the same tournament 12 months later.
Now they would meet in a Grand Slam for the first time.
Perez-Barbadillo: Before the match, we did another photo shoot. Rafa was with the Spanish flag, and he was eating ice cream, and we did a little shoot for everybody, all the photographers at Roland Garros that day before the semifinals. Crazy. Can you imagine that now?
Cristopher Clarey: I'd interviewed Federer a few days before the tournament at the Hôtel de Crillon. He was feeling very confident and was looking to complete the career Grand Slam. I thought Rafa was a slight favorite based on what we'd seen already and the beast that you could tell he was going to be. Roger was very matter-of-fact about Rafa, and he talked about him as if he was describing some kind of natural phenomenon. He would call him 'it' and said things like: 'Quite impressive, isn't it? He's already bigger than me, and he's five years younger. Imagine how he looks in five years.'
As well as Nadal was playing, Federer was also cruising — he hadn't lost a set and had thrashed Nadal's good friend Moya, a former Roland Garros champion, in the fourth round. He had come to Paris early to get extra practice time on Chatrier, having struggled with its huge dimensions in the past.
The very first point of the match, the opening of arguably the best Grand Slam rivalry in men's tennis history, was a beauty. Federer tried to put away a forehand, but there was Nadal, on his 19th birthday, running it down and whipping a forehand passing shot down the line for a winner. They split the first two sets, but in the fading light, with Federer wanting the match to stop, Nadal toughed out a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win.
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Clarey: It was a tighter match than people remember. Roger had his chances. The pattern that became the bugaboo for Roger was clear. There was that breakdown on the third or fourth backhand above the shoulder. Not the first, usually. A lot of extended points as well. I just think the matchup was a bad one for Roger. Worse on clay than anywhere. That match was a real indicator that Nadal had the gravitas and the ability to live up to the hype and block everything out.
There were some players who were mentally strong but their games weren't as locked in but Rafa at 18 when he came here he was a fully formed mental competitor — he was a beast mentally already.
Toni Nadal: Federer is more specialised in hard and grass courts, but had a wonderful serve, and many good shots. It was a very difficult match. Everyone knew how good Federer was.
But after that, beating the world No. 1, we thought we could win the tournament.
All that stood between Nadal and a first Grand Slam title was the unseeded Mariano Puerta. The Argentine, a left-hander and an accomplished clay-courter, posed Nadal different problems. He was back from a nine-month anti-doping ban issued in 2003, and he tested positive for etilefrine, a cardiac substance, shortly after his final against Nadal.
On the day before the final, Nadal was given a very special hitting partner — three-time French Open champion Mats Wilander. Stylistically, Wilander made little sense as a rightie who didn't play with much topspin, but he and Nadal shared an agent in Carlos Costa, and the idea was that Nadal would be inspired by hitting with one of the greats of the game.
Mats Wilander: My main memory of that was that I couldn't hit one forehand in the court because there was so much topspin. My backhand was OK, because I've got two hands, but it was really difficult to play against him — I'd never seen that much spin before in my life.
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You can see it, but it's different when you actually play against it. There's a huge difference. And then, obviously, he got more and more spin and more and power the older he got. But in the beginning, it was mainly spin, and it was ridiculous.
I was expecting him to win (Roland Garros), maybe not that year necessarily, but you could see straight away that this guy was.
Perez-Barbadillo: There was tension the day before the final but also we were playing a football game on the PlayStation in his room. It turned out to be good preparation.
Nadal picked up an early break in the first set, but Puerta's level lifted after he received treatment for a thigh injury. Puerta recovered to take the first set, playing a daring brand of tennis, full of darts to the net and big swings with his forehand. Nadal rallied to take the next two sets, but found himself down 5-4 in the fourth, with Puerta serving to take the match into a decider and up two set points at 40-15. When a diving Puerta netted a volley to lose the second, Nadal leapt child-like into the air, a rare reminder of how young he was.
He saved a third set point with an absurd reflex volley, and Puerta knew the moment had gone. Two games later, Nadal was on his back in what would become his trademark celebration, winning 6-7(6), 6-1, 6-3, 7-5.
Covered in clay, he clambered up to his box, and shared a warm embrace with his family, including his uncle Toni, who had guided him to this point. He even shook hands with King Juan Carlos of Spain, who was in attendance.
'People say he dreams with his feet on the ground,' said Mary Carillo in her commentary on NBC. 'He knows he belongs out here.'
Toni Nadal: I was very, very happy because I knew that for the big players, for the people who want to be very good, they all want to win a slam. And Rafael was 19 and he had one, and this is what I said to him that day. At least we know that we have one Grand Slam.
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It was a very close match. Puerta played really well and made it difficult. Rafael played a little better in the key moments. If Puerta had won the set points he had in the fourth set, maybe we cannot win the match from there.
Mary Carillo: I forgot how good Puerta played but what what strikes me most watching it back was how fast Nadal was, and how incredible his defences were. He was so damn young, the scissor kicks he did when he won big points and the fact that he was so fast, he wasn't using what became a great shot in and of itself, his backhand, he was quick enough to run around and hit his big forehands. The three set points he saved when Puerta had a chance to take it into a fourth. Just, wow, it was fun stuff. The king, by the way, gave Nadal a standing ovation, along with a lot of other people, when he got it to 5-5 in the fourth.
Carlos Moya: It was a roller-coaster of a match, so open and Puerta was playing amazing. We all thought Rafa could do it but until you win one, you don't know mentally if someone is going to be ready. And if they got to the fifth set, you never know what can happen, because Puerta physically was a beast.
Clarey: A lot of the things that made 14 possible are there in that final. The point-to-point focus, the resistance to hype, the resistance to other people labeling him and creating his own scenario for himself. And the enjoyment and embrace of adversity.
Toni Nadal: I thought he could win more Roland Garros titles because I am a logical man. When you win at 19, then I thought, 'OK, if we win with 19, we can win when we're 20,' and so on. Every year, I thought the next year he could win, but I never thought he could win 14 titles.
After the match, I wrote Rafael a note that said, 'Puerta played better than you, but you won the match. If next year you play exactly the same, you cannot repeat the title, so we have to improve.'
Clarey: I got invited to the celebrations that night at the Café de l'Homme, which has a trillion-dollar view of the Eiffel Tower terrace. That's where Rafa had his early victory parties, and the whole family was there. And I thought I would sort of go into a scene similar to what we saw in the Carlos Alcaraz documentary, you know, big celebrations kind of vibe. But it wasn't that at all. It was very sober and dignified. Rafa was wearing an open shirt, no tie, looking nothing at all like the beast that he had been a few hours before, who had jumped around and was covered in clay. It was a little bit like Clark Kent and Superman.
Nadal sees that version of himself in simpler terms, and the final word belongs to the man himself.
Rafael Nadal: What I remember is a guy with plenty of energy, with an amazing passion and motivation for what I was doing.
(Top photos: Getty Images; Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic)