There was a good deal that was familiar, and a little that was new, in Rafael Nadal’s 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 win over Dominic Thiem at Roland Garros on Friday.
Let’s start with the new.
Nadal had played three tough matches against Thiem this spring. He had won the first two, in the Barcelona and Madrid finals, but there was a sense that the Austrian was creeping closer to him, and he proved that sense to be correct when he beat Rafa in straight sets in Rome. In that match, and in his five straight-set wins in Paris, Thiem had pushed his opponents off the baseline and given himself a chance to dominate with his 90-m.p.h. forehand from all over the court. He had even dominated Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals.
What was Rafa’s answer to that seemingly daunting problem? Early on, he added a wrinkle to his own baseline attack: the down-the-line backhand. This isn’t usually part of the Rafa playbook, and it surprised Thiem. It also forced him to hit defensive backhands, and kept him from sitting on his forehand side and waiting to pound that shot. Up 4-2 in the first, Nadal won two points with down-the-line backhands and held at love.
Along with that backhand wrinkle, Nadal added something extra to his serve. Following new coach Carlos Moya’s advice, Rafa has varied his service locations more this year than he ever had in the past. And through this spring, his serve has been a more important part of his winning formula on clay than it has been in the past. That proved to be true again on Friday. Up a break at 3-1 in the first set, but down 15-40, Nadal came up with three service winners to hold. Down two more break points at 0-1 in the second set, Rafa did the same thing: He saved one with a service winner, saved another with a wicked wide swinger into the ad court and held with an ace.