Thirty-two sets in a row, 103 wins at a tournament he has won 13 times, and 16 fourth-round appearances from 16 attempts contested – for Rafael Nadal, the numbers continue to accumulate at the French Open. The defending champion, bidding for his fifth successive title in Paris, defeated Britain’s Cameron Norrie, the world No 45, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 to extend his extraordinary assault on the record books.
Nadal’s tennis was never quite of the order of his devastating opening passage against Richard Gasquet in the previous round, but the Spaniard raised his game at the key moments and in the end Norrie, who may justifiably feel the scoreline did not entirely do his efforts justice, was well beaten.
Yet the Briton never stopped pressing and, as might be expected from a player whose season has included clay-court finals in Estoril and Lyon, where he beat US Open champion Dominic Thiem, he was competitive throughout. Norrie, who also lost to Nadal at the Australian Open and, more recently, on clay in Barcelona, unsettled the irrepressible Spaniard in the second set and resisted his opponent’s efforts to dictate the tempo of the match.
“He is having the best season of his career, winning plenty of matches,” said Nadal, who will face Italy’s Jannik Sinner, the 18th seed, for a place in the last eight. “It was a tough third round, but I found a way to be through, and that’s the most important thing for me. I played for moments some good tennis, for moments I can do a little bit better, but I was able to win in straight sets, and that’s so important for me.”
In truth, winning in straight sets at Roland Garros is hardly a novelty for the Spaniard, who was last extended beyond the minimum distance by Thiem in the 2019 final. Norrie was playing catch-up as early as the sixth game, when the Spaniard laid the groundwork for a pivotal first break by following a carefully measured lob with the deftest of drop shots. Three games later, Nadal served out the opening set to love to leave his opponent wearing the bemused look of a man outwitted without ever putting a foot wrong.
Yet Norrie, who combines a heavy topspin forehand with a fast, flat backhand, has an awkward style that can upset the rhythm of the best. The Briton leveraged those qualities to telling effect in the second set, disturbing Nadal’s timing with high, looping balls and wickedly sliced serves wide to the ad court. He speared a backhand winner to move 2-0 up and, when Nadal broke back at the first time of asking, he produced another drilled backhand to re-establish his two-game advantage. Again, the Spaniard hit back immediately.
A flashpoint occurred when Norrie complained to chair umpire Louise Engzell that Nadal was making him wait on serve. Like Federer, who became embroiled in a similar dispute during his win over Marin Cilic, Nadal said afterwards that he had simply been retrieving his towel, “something that everybody does” now that ballboys and girls are no longer able to touch them.
Nadal said he also suspected that Norrie was deliberately trying to rush him. “Sometimes I think he was trying to speed up the situations, to put some pressure,” said Nadal. “He’s free to do it. I don’t think I did anything bad.
“I didn’t complain at all when he was throwing his ball bad for 20 times, so I don’t think he has to complain about the other stuff, no? Just he was playing his cards, and that’s it.”
By the time Nadal sealed the second set with a pair of crushing backhand winners, Norrie’s fate was sealed. As Victoria Azarenka remarked on social media, watching Nadal play at Roland Garros is like watching your favourite film: fun, but you know how it will end. Norrie will appreciate the sentiment.
Nadal broke early in the third set with a ferocious whipped forehand that left the Briton contorted and flailing on the baseline. Norrie continued to fight valiantly, but the match was over as a contest.
The win moves Nadal a step closer to an anticipated semi-final showdown with Novak Djokovic, who made short work of Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis.
“I’m always my biggest critic and you can always do certain things better,” said Djokovic after a 6-1, 6-4, 6-1 victory that set up a last-16 meeting with Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti. “It couldn’t be much better than this, especially the first and third sets. I served well, moved well and made him play.”
A potential quarter-final between Djokovic and Roger Federer remains on the cards, although the Swiss suggested after his 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 victory over Germany’s Dominik Koepfer that he could withdraw from the tournament.
“I need to decide if I keep on playing or not or is it not too much risk at this moment to keep on pushing, or is this just a perfect way to just take a rest?” said Federer, whose priority remains Wimbledon, where he has a more realistic chance of adding to his tally of 20 majors.
“Because I don’t have the week in between here and Halle like normal to see what’s best now, if you count back from Wimbledon and so forth. It’s just a lot going on, but having a match like this, knowing I could have probably played a fifth set but not knowing how I will wake up tomorrow is interesting, to say the least.”
Federer must have thought he had seen it all over the course of nearly a quarter of a century on the tour; his first experience of a night session at Roland Garros will have taught him otherwise. To a man contesting only his sixth match in 17 months since returning from double knee surgery, playing on an empty and soulless Court Philippe Chatrier must have seemed thoroughly alien.
The local curfew of 9pm was the least of Federer’s problems, however. Always obdurate and occasionally inspired, the 59th-ranked Koepfer detained Federer for three hours and 35 minutes, pushing him all the way in a gruelling and error-strewn contest. It was almost quarter to one in the morning by the time the pair were done, and the latest finish in the tournament’s history was hardly the preparation for which Federer would have wished ahead of a showdown with Matteo Berrettini, the ninth seed, who awaits in round four.
Federer made 16 unforced errors in the first set, missing five break points before Koepfer effectively gifted him the climactic tiebreak with a double fault. It was then that his troubles began in earnest. With the errors mounting and his serve misfiring, Federer dropped the second set and fell a break behind in the third. At that point he looked down and out, but a break in the eighth game put him on course for a third tiebreak, and from there he was able to see out the match.
“It was a lot of premiers for me – playing against Koepfer for the first night session here in Paris, first time no fans in a long, long time, or ever in my career. That was definitely very unique in many ways, and I’m happy I found a way,” said Federer.