TENNIS
Who are the players who have beaten Rafael Nadal at the French Open?
Nadal started his 2024 tournament at Roland-Garros with a loss against Alexander Zverev, who joined a very exclusive club.
Rafael Nadal is the undisputed king of Roland-Garros, with 14 of his 22 Grand Slam titles coming at the French Open. The Spaniard gets his 2024 tournament underway against fourth seed Alexander Zverev on Monday, with many wondering whether could prove to be his last match in Paris given his advancing years and injury record, a theory the player himself has refused to confirm nor deny.
Nadal’s lengthy list of French Open records
The 37-year-old has an astonishing record in the second major on the tennis calendar.
Nadal has won eight more French Open titles than anyone else in the Open Era (Swede Björn Borg is second on six victories), with his dominance of the competition limiting Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer to just three and one win respectively.
Only three players have defeated Nadal at Roland-Garros
Djokovic is one of only three men to have beaten the Mallorca native at Roland-Garros and the only player to have done so twice. The Serb ousted Nadal in the quarter-finals in 2015 but lost to Stan Warwinka in the final, although the current world number one did win the tournament in 2021 (beating Stefanos Tsitispas in the showpiece game) after ending the Spaniard’s run in the semi-final.
That defeat in 2015 was, incredibly, only the second suffered by Nadal in Paris after making his French Open debut 10 years earlier. Having won the tournament in his first four appearances, he surprisingly lost to Robin Söderling of Sweden in four sets in the fourth round in 2009.
Alexander Zverev is the third player to beat Rafael Nadal at the French Open, which he accomplished in the first round of the 2024 tournament.
How many matches has Rafael Nadal lost at the French Open?
Nadal bounced back in empathetic fashion, winning at Roland-Garros five years running between 2010 and 2014, the longest run of any player in any of the four Grand Slams in the Open Era.
Just for good measure, he then won four in a row for the second time in his career from 2017 to 2020.
All in all, the 14-time French Open champion has won 112 of his 116 matches at the tournament. Before his loss in 2024, the only other time he participated and failed to win was in 2016, when a wrist injury forced him to withdraw before his third-round encounter against compatriot Marcel Granollers.