Rafael Nadal and Roland Garros go together like thunder and lightning. Any time the Spaniard competes on the Parisian terre battue, you know something special will happen. The evidence is clear: a record 11 finals (10-0), an 85-2 record and more shouts of ‘Vamos!’ than one can count.

But just because Nadal has won on the red dirt at Roland Garros an unprecedented 97.8 per cent of the time does not mean that the World No. 1 takes his appearance in Sunday’s final for granted.

“Being in a final here is something I should rejoice about and be happy about. It may sound easy and logical, but I don’t want it to be. It’s not a routine. I don’t want anyone to think that it’s a routine,” Nadal said. “It’s a day that I should rejoice about, enjoy. And from tomorrow on, I will do what I have to do to get ready for Sunday.”

So even though winning another Roland Garros semi-final is nothing new for Nadal, he is enjoying it just the same. He maintains the same mentality that helped him lift his first Coupe des Mousquetaires as a 19-year-old in 2005.

“The motivation to play here always is high, [as] high as possible,” Nadal said. “But for me, every tournament… there [are] limited chances in your career. So when I had the chances, I just tried to convert. Then [if] you lose, you lose, but I’m going to play with my highest passion and love for the game and for the sport to try to have success.”

Sure, Nadal has been dominant this clay-court season, going 25-1 thus far, with his only loss coming in the Mutua Madrid Open quarter-finals against his opponent in the championship match, Dominic Thiem. But it’s easy to forget that Nadal had to withdraw from Acapulco, Indian Wells and Miami just a few months ago due to a right hip injury.

“I lost a lot of opportunities for injuries, and I know the years are going quickly,” Nadal said with a smile. “There are not 10 more chances to keep playing here. So I’m just enjoying the fact that I am here again.”

Nadal has long been credited for his fight on the court, and his relentless pursuit of every point. The Spaniard ‘takes a point off’ as often as the sun fails to rise in the morning — it simply does not happen. And the reason why is clear.

“I love what I am doing. I love the competition. I love the sport,” Nadal said. “If it’s not that way, it’s sure that I will not be here… It’s a lot of years of playing and doing the same things every year. But the only way to keep doing that and keep going on court every morning with the motivation to improve something [is] because you feel the game. You feel the sport and you appreciate [it].”  

Matching his career-high of No. 4 in the ATP Rankings: Add it to the list of milestones that Juan Martin del Potro thought he’d never achieve after enduring three left wrist surgeries from March 2014 to June 2015.

But, following his second Roland Garros semi-final run (2009), del Potro will be back in the Top 4 on Monday when the new ATP Rankings are released.

“[It] is something special for me, for my family, for the people who were behind me all the time. I like to keep surprising myself,” Del Potro said after falling to No. 1 Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 in Friday’s semi-final.

“Any person who follows my recovery knows that when I came back to play tennis, [I] would have never thought I would become No. 4 again. I was feeling that because my body was going through these difficult times. But now I’m here, and I’m enjoying and thanking all these people who didn’t let me retire a few years ago. They encouraged me to continue fighting.”

Del Potro was last at No. 4 eight years ago when he spent two weeks, 19 April 2010 to 2 May 2010, at his career-high. This time, it seems likely he will get to spend more than just a couple of weeks inside the Top 5. Del Potro will be defending only 90 ATP Rankings points during the next two months.

The 6’6” Argentine was close to taking a set off Nadal, like the Tandil native’s countryman Diego Schwartzman did in the quarter-finals. Del Potro saw six break points in the first set, including two on Nadal’s serve from 4-4, 15/40, but the Spaniard erased them all.

“That was my chance of the match. I had a lot of break points. I couldn’t make it. Rafa served well, played good points in those break points, and I got unlucky in that moment. Could be different match if I win the first set,” Del Potro said.

“But then he made me run a lot. Intensity is too high the whole match, and I couldn’t stay there after the first set… When you don’t take your chances against the No. 1 in the world, you’re in trouble.”

Del Potro leaves Roland Garros feeling confident about the remainder of his 2018. He’s currently No. 4 in the ATP Race To London.

“I did a beautiful tournament, better than expected,” he said, ”and losing against Rafa on his best surface, his best court, I’m quite relaxed about that.”

For Marco Cecchinato, who fell to Dominic Thiem 7-5, 7-6(10), 6-1, the lasting memory of his surprise run to the Roland Garros semi-finals wasn’t when he ousted 2016 champion Novak Djokovic in a 24-point tie-break during the quarter-finals, one of the moments of the fortnight. It also wasn’t when Cecchinato, down two sets to love in the first round, came back to beat Romania’s Marius Copil 10-8 in the fifth set to secure his maiden Grand Slam victory.

The finest memory for Cecchinato, who captivated tennis fans across the world, was when the fans shouted the love back at the Italian.

“I think today, all day, on Philippe-Chatrier, every point, [the fans] said ‘Forza, Marco’. So I think this is the best moment for me. Against Dominic Thiem, he is Top 10, and today all the people were for me,” Cecchinato said.

It’s worth repeating: the Italian had not won a Grand Slam match before Roland Garros, having gone 0-4 since the 2015 US Open. But then he defeated Copil, Argentine lucky loser Marco Trungelliti, 10^th seed Pablo Carreno Busta, eighth seed David Goffin and former No. 1 Djokovic to make the semi-finals. Cecchinato became the lowest-ranked Roland Garros semi-finalist since No. 100 Andrei Medvedev 19 years ago.

“[It] was the special tournament for me. I played two sets the same level against Dominic Thiem. I think he’s the second- or third-best player on red clay,” Cecchinato said. “The level is very good in this moment. And after Roland Garros, I am very, very happy.”

Cecchinato reminded everyone that his run didn’t come from completely out of nowhere. The 25-year-old Italian, as a lucky loser, won his maiden ATP World Tour title in April on clay at the Gazprom Hungarian Open in Budapest. Prior to that, Cecchinato had been 5-29 in tour-level matches.

Read & Watch: Champion Cecchinato: Italian Wins Maiden ATP World Tour Title

“I think I started two months ago, not the last two weeks, because I won also Budapest… So I start to play very well in Monte-Carlo, I think. And so every week I play very, very well… and I want to continue like this,” Cecchinato said.

The Italian, currently No. 72 in the ATP Rankings, is expected to climb to a new career-high of No. 27 when the new rankings are released on Monday. He has his eyes set on even more elusive territory.

“For me, it is very important today, because I [was] playing against Dominic. So I need more work [to get to] Top 10 or Top 20, so these matches are very important for me,” Cecchinato said. “I think it’s possible to compete every day, I think, because every match I played very well against Top 10, Top 20, Top 30. So now I think positive and maybe I can go also Top 20.”

No doubles team has been as dominant as Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic in 2018. The Austrian-Croatian tandem has already won four tour-level titles out of six finals, soaring to No. 1 (Pavic) and No. 2 (Marach) in the ATP Doubles Rankings.

And on Saturday, they will have a chance to earn their second Grand Slam championship of the season, after defeating No. 12 seeds Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez 6-4, 7-5 in the Roland Garros semi-finals. The second seeds broke three times to advance after one hour, 32 minutes.

Marach and Pavic now have 36 match wins as a team this season. The pair has gained a sizeable lead in the ATP Doubles Race To London, guaranteeing that regardless of the result in the final, they will sit in first by at least 1,295 points.

It appeared that Marach and Pavic would need to win their third consecutive three-setter, as the Spaniards broke for a 5-3 lead in the second set. But the favourites strung together the final four games of the match, breaking twice and losing just one point on serve, to advance to the final on the Parisian terre battue.

The championship match will be a difficult one, as Marach and Pavic look to beat home favourites Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut. Less than four months ago, the Frenchmen ended Marach and Pavic’s 17-0 start to the campaign in the final of the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament.

Herbert and Mahut have won both of their FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against their final opponents, and are seeking their third Grand Slam trophy (2015 US Open, 2016 Wimbledon). Marach and Pavic, on the other hand, are the reigning Australian Open titlists.

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