DJOKOVIC SMASHES NADAL’S EPIC RUN

Serb on cusp of 19th Grand Slam after dethroning the King of Clay

AMatch billed as the real French Open final turned last night into a match that might define an era, as Novak Djokovic brilliantly deposed the king of Roland Garros.

a quirk of the ranking system made this a last-four contest but it was worthy of far more as he dismissed 13- time champion Rafael Nadal 3- 6, 6- 3, 7- 6, 6- 2 across four hours and 11 minutes of breathtaking tennis.

It was so good that, amid scenes of uproar, the 5,000 crowd were given dispensation to ignore Paris’s present curfew and stay on as the 11pm cut-off time loomed.

the Serb now meets Stefanos tsitsipas, 22, who earlier became the first Greek to make the final of a major with a five-set victory over alex Zverev.

their match took a sapping three hours and 37 minutes, meaning the start to the main event was delayed until 7.10pm.

Given how long best-of-five-set matches last on clay, it was a stunningly inept decision of the French Open not to start the opener until 3pm, especially when they knew there is an 11pm go-home deadline in place.

that was forgotten by the end as Djokovic broke both the game and the spirit of the man who has dominated this western corner of the French capital since 2005. It was Nadal’s first loss since 2016 on court Philippe chatrier.

Djokovic is now on the cusp of winning a 19th Grand Slam title, putting him one behind Nadal and Roger Federer.

It was breathless and brilliant throughout, and a hint of what was to come came in the first two games, taking 16 minutes, with Nadal securing an early break.

however, this was not like the final last October, when the Spaniard wiped out his opponent in the opener. although he did not win a game until 5-0 down, he was always more competitive than back then, and often made Nadal play an extra ball when he thought he had the point won.

Nadal was also fretting about the shot clock measuring his time between points, and it was no surprise when Djokovic went up early in the second set, which turned into a war that an increasingly flustered Nadal could not win.

If the second set was the most brutal ever played between this pair, the third was the most fascinatingly undulating, littered with points that combined brain with brawn. calm and dead-eyed, the

Serb served for it at 5-4, 30-0, when from nowhere he netted a simple forehand with the court wide open. that looked set to haunt him because Nadal suddenly found his length again and broke back.

Djokovic saved a set point at 5-6 with a drop shot and then turned the tiebreak when his opponent made an awful forehand volley error at 3-4, allowing him to edge in front. he had won it via the most scenic of routes, and it must be doubtful that a better set has ever been played. By the end of its 93-minute duration, Djokovic had won 105 points, Nadal 106.

With 25 minutes left to Paris’s curfew, the call came over the public address system that the crowd could stay — courtesy of a government decision.

Djokovic, who had not beaten Nadal on clay for five years, had been the better player since the first set and, equally surprisingly, the calmer.

Still Nadal was not finished and he broke straight away. Normal service, however, was not being resumed and Djokovic again began to look more than a year younger than the champion. By the end there was that rarest of sights, Nadal having both his game and his spirit broken as he lost the last six games in succession. ‘It was a privilege to play Rafa tonight,’ said Djokovic. ‘ the atmosphere and energy was as good as anything I have experienced. ‘ It was the finest match I have played in Paris.’ Nadal was magnanimous in defeat, saying: ‘Well done to him. he beat me in a good fight. today was not my day.

‘Probably it was not my best day out there, even though I fought. against a player like him, who takes the ball early, if you are not able to take him out of his position then it is very difficult.’

For tsitsipas, there had been tears of joy as he became the first player from his country to make a Grand Slam final.

his compatriot Maria Sakkari having agonisingly missed out in the women’s event, the Greek fulfilled his destiny by taking the first slot in tomorrow’s Roland Garros championship match.

In a tense encounter, he edged out Germany’s Zverev 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3. after clinching the win, he choked back emotion as he contemplated his achievement. ‘all I can think of is my roots, where I came from,’ he said. ‘I came from a really small place outside athens.

‘My dream was to play here, my dream was to play on the big stage of the French Open. I never thought I would.’