Against the night, the cold and the balls: this is how Nadal won his most adverse Roland Garros

There are two realities that confront when assessing the difficulty of

to conquer his thirteenth Roland Garros and twentieth Grand Slam.

On the one hand, his first five opponents were troop class tennis players, all of them without having had a previous hearing against the Spanish.

,

,

,

and

paraded

, until the arrival of

, already a contrasted type,

from this monday.

The Argentine, who played the tournament as the twelfth seed, raised the rank of the rest of the rivals, all of them below the top 70 of the circuit, some, beyond 200. Jannik Sinner, in the quarterfinals, was nevertheless a turning point, and the aggravation of the complications that the tournament entailed this year for Nadal when he saw his own nature distorted.

Surprisingly, in the final, against Djokovic, he experienced one of his most placid matches.

An open-air competition, traditionally held in spring, at dawn in autumn, and with temperatures some days closer to winter.

And a game, that of the young Sinner, one of those who aim, cheeky until he had in hand to win the first set, which began at 10:37 p.m. on Wednesday night.

Yes, they read that correctly.

Never a match of the tournament had been played so late, but the remodeling of the venue, with artificial lighting on several courts and a retractable roof on the main one, the

, made it easier to delay the days until necessary.

MARTIN BUREAUAFP

This happened on Wednesday evening, as a result of poor programming: five games in the Central, when there must be four, by inheriting a female one that was pending on Tuesday's day.

And Nadal waiting for his turn from 1:15 pm when he appeared at the club, as he always likes to have a lot of room for his preparation and his routines.

He was seen with a frown as he entered the Chatrier tunnel, but later denied that he had started the meeting in anger.

He won it in three sets, like everyone else until the final.

Some unexpected schedules, cold and new balls, Wilson for Babolat, which was the brand with which it was played since 2011. Both things are related, because the very uniqueness of American balls, less docile to topspin impact, dead, more difficult to move, it adds how the decrease in mercury affects them.

If not, see the proliferation of left-outs, as

,

coach

and regular columnist for this newspaper

, pointed out

.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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