June 07, 2010

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World No. 1, and now five-time French Open champion, Rafael Nadal owned his Roland Garros rematch against Robin Soderling on Sunday. Nadal played a flawless tournament, taking the championship without dropping a set. He ruled the court in true Nadal style, taking risks, coming to the net and going for the lines as he blew Soderling off the court 6-4, 6-2, 6-4.

It seemed as though Nadal was far more prepared to fight the fight as Soderling racked up a lot of unforced errors in the first set. He was serving big to force Nadal out of position, but the Spaniard was running down everything and covering a lot of the court, as is his custom. Nadal did not give the Swede many opportunities to attack the ball as he was pushing him back with spin.

Nadal won all of the ATP Masters 1000 events on clay at Monte Carlo, Rome and Madrid and finished off the clay season winning his fifth French Open title. He has taken Roger Federer’s No. 1 spot on the ATP rankings and is second to Bjorn Borg’s six career French Open titles.

The men’s doubles title went to Canadian Daniel Nestor and his partner Nenad Zimonjic as they won their third Grand Slam event as a team. This was Nestor’s second French Open title as he won in 2007 with then partner, Mark Knowles. The Nestor and Zimonjic duo defeated No. 3 seeds Lukas Dlouhy and Leander Paes in straight sets, 7-5, 6-2 on Saturday. Nestor and Zimonjic lost to this team last year in the semifinals at Roland Garros, so the win was redemption for them.

The women’s French Open final was just as thrilling as the men’s as Francesca Schiavone defeated Samantha Stosur in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6(2) to win her first ever Grand Slam championship. Schiavone’s victory over the No. 7 ranked player made quite a statement in her home country of Italy.

Schiavone handled the pressure very well seeing as though neither player had ever competed as a Grand Slam finalist before. Schiavone didn’t once become unnerved as she played with confidence, accuracy and dictated the points. She is a true champion, not only at Roland Garros, but as well in her home country of Italy where she re-wrote history to become first Italian woman to ever win a Grand Slam.