Roger Federer’s vow on Monday to continue playing tennis until after the 2016 Olympics in Rio thrilled his millions of followers, of course – but there is lingering doubt about the longevity of the Swiss’s enduring rival, Rafael Nadal.
While it is inconceivable that the Spaniard, who has won nine French Open titles and 66 of 67 matches at Roland Garros over 10 years, will lose in his opening-round match against the 18-year-old French wild card Quentin Halys on Tuesday, such a calamity would inspire not only wild celebration among Parisians who have often been ambivalent about their imported king of clay but an orgy of speculation elsewhere about Nadal’s future.
For the first time in a decade Nadal has failed to win a single title on European clay coming into this tournament. Indeed he has lost four times – as well as once on the surface in South America earlier in the year.
Pat Cash and Patrick McEnroe each have expressed fears over the past week about the state of his tennis and his self-belief. McEnroe, whose only grand slam title arrived here in the doubles in 1989, went so far as to suggest Nadal might quit tennis altogether if he fell early here and descended down the rankings from his already perilous position of No7.
Cash, writing in the Sunday Times, suggested Nadal’s self-confidence is ebbing by the defeat and that in conversation with him at the start of the year he detected hitherto unknown jitters about his game.
Nadal certainly is not moving as quickly or with as much purpose as before his appendix operation towards the end of last year; he has also had a back injury to cope with over the past 18 months, which flared most dramatically in his defeat to Stanislas Wawrinka the final of the 2014 Australian Open.
But he uses none of that as an excuse and in fact said after an early departure in Rome that he did not feel as nervous on court now as he did earlier in the season. That did not look the case when he lost timorously against Andy Murray in the final of the Madrid Open this month. He shanked ground strokes he would normally have raked back across the net with fierce power and top spin and did not hunt down balls wide on both wings that once were in his range.
As for Halys, it does not bear thinking about what the reaction would be if he were to pull off what would surely be regarded as the biggest upset in the history of tennis. He is ranked 296 in the world, having worked his way up from 636 in January, when he was losing in straight sets to his equally obscure compatriot Louis Chax in the first round of a Futures event for a purse of $104 (£68).
He has won a couple of tournaments on that circuit since but there is not a single recognisable name on his CV. In the second round in Nice last week he lost to the Australian James Duckworth. He would need the assistance of Messrs Duckworth and Lewis to have even an outside chance of embarrassing Nadal.
The defending champion turns 29 on the day of the quarter-final and it looks a near certainty that would be against the world No1, Novak Djokovic. Now there is a proper test, a match that surely would have all the grandeur and drama of a final.
Djokovic’s first match is against the unseeded Finn Jarkko Nieminen, whose most famous match here was against Murray in the second round three years ago, when the Scot’s back collapsed on him before he recovered to win and go on to reach the quarter-finals.
