In 2002, a 16-year-old Spanish tennis player made headlines by winning his debut ATP match against Ramon Delgado of Paraguay. No one had any idea that six years down the road the teenager would become a star.
I`m referring to the undisputed King of Roland Garros, the greatest clay court tennis player in the history of tennis who this year has won the French Open, Wimbledon and an Olympic gold medal Rafael Nadal.
The year 2008 has turned out to be great for Nadal. He started off by winning the French Open final against Sweden`s Roger Federer, and weeks later defeated Federer at Wimbledon — a tournament where Federer had been unbeaten for the past five finals.
With eight championship wins under his belt, Nadal`s win-loss ratio is 67-8 and his list of trophies include four consecutive French Open titles (from 2005 to 2008) and one Wimbledon championship win. Regarded as the king of clay, he has maintained an unprecedented 22-1 record in clay court tournament finals and has remained unbeaten in more than 40 clay matches (best of five-set each).
He also holds the record for the longest winning streak in clay tennis matches in the open era tennis history (by winning 81 straight matches from April 2005 to March 2007). Along with this spectacular list of achievements, Nadal has won both the French Open and two of the three Master Series tennis tournaments each year from 2005 to 2008.
Nadal took part in this year`s Australian Open and was the finalist at the Sony Ericsson Open played in Florida, which was his second appearance at this tournament`s final. For the third straight year, he defeated Federer at the 2008 Monte Carlo Masters. He then won his fourth straight final at the Open Sabadell Atlantico tournament in Barcelona. Nadal then went on to clinch his very first title at the 2008 Hamburg Masters, where he again defeated
Federer, augmenting their rivalry to a whole new level.
With such an exceptional record, superb tennis shots and an aggressive attitude, Nadal deserved to be number one, but stayed at the second spot for weeks with Federer blocking his way.
On July 8, 2008, Nadal shocked the world by beating the world number one Federer at the 2008 Wimbledon men`s final. This Wimbledon achievement gave Nadal his 32nd consecutive victory and he set his eyes on the mega sporting event, the Beijing Olympics.
Nadal cruised into the finals of the Olympic Games by defeating Serbian Novak Djokovic (6-4, 1-6, 6-4) and was looking for his first ever Olympic gold medal when he had to battle it out against Chile`s Fernando Gonzalez. The match was an intense one as both players gave their best to win the gold medal. Standing at the edge of a championship point, Nadal unleashed a forehand that Gonzalez couldn`t cope with, and with that Nadal fell on the ground forming the shape of a star. He won the fixture by 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 and earned his first Olympic gold medal.
The victory at the Olympics proved to be the icing on the cake for Rafael Nadal. He became the world`s No. 1 tennis player pushing Federer at the number 2 spot.