Rafael Nadal has revealed that the first two sets of his 2020 French Open final victory over Novak Djokovic helped make that the favourite of the 14 championship matches he played at the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u2018King of Clay\u2019 Nadal<\/a> memorably dominated the French Open<\/a> for the best part of two decades, winning 14 of his 22 Grand Slam singles titles at Roland Garros during his legendary career.<\/p>\n No player in tennis history has won as many singles titles at one individual major as Nadal did at Roland Garros, with the Spaniard winning every final he ever contested at the tournament.<\/p>\n The Spaniard reached the final \u2014 and lifted the title \u2014 for the first time in 2005, and claimed the last of his 14 titles inside Court Philippe Chatrier in 2022, which proved to be his final career title full stop.<\/p>\n Nadal\u2019s clay dominance meant that he was never once pushed to five sets in a final at the French Open, with many of his victories coming in straight sets.<\/p>\n However, in a video shared on the French Open\u2019s social media channels, Nadal has revealed why his 2020 victory over Djokovic<\/a> was so special.<\/p>\n The 39-year-old\u2019s 13th French Open title was one of his most impressive, with the Spaniard beating his greatest rival 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 to triumph once again at the tournament.<\/p>\n Usually held in May and June, the 2020 edition of the event was held in cooler and more challenging October conditions due to COVID.<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic\u2019s wealth soars as his total prize money for 2025 is finalised<\/a><\/p>\n Jimmy Connors reveals why Carlos Alcaraz & Jannik Sinner could \u2018keep dominating\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Explaining why this final was so special, Nadal revealed that the fact he was considered slightly less of a \u201cfavourite\u201d that year was a factor.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cMaybe the first two sets of the 2020 final\u2026very, very special.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the year of COVID. We played Roland Garros later on [in] the season with much colder conditions, against Novak in the final, with the feeling that it was probably the year that I was less [of a] favourite.<\/p>\n \u201cI was able to get in the final, and then in the final, I was able to increase my level of tennis in a very special way.<\/p>\n \u201cThese two sets, I think, have been so special.\u201d<\/p>\n Nadal\u2019s victory over Djokovic was the third time he had beaten arguably his greatest rival in the final at Roland Garros, after four-set victories in 2012 and 2014.<\/p>\n It was also the ninth and final time the two met in a Grand Slam final, the most such meetings between two men in the Open Era.<\/p>\n Nadal finished their rivalry with a slender 5-4 advantage across their nine major finals, though Djokovic ultimately won more Slams \u2014 24 to Nadal\u2019s 22 \u2014 and holds a 31-29 advantage in their overall head-to-head.<\/p>\n Outside of his victories over Djokovic in 2012, 2014, and 2020, Nadal also beat Mariano Puerta (2005), Roger Federer (2006-08, 2011), Robin Soderling (2010), David Ferrer (2013), Stan Wawrinka (2017), Dominic Thiem (2018-19), and Casper Ruud (2022) in French Open finals.<\/p>\n We asked Rafa to pick his favorite Roland-Garros final.<\/p>\n His answer: the first two sets of the 2020 final pic.twitter.com\/JxnEKsF0hF<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) November 21, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Read Next<\/strong>: Roger Federer\u2019s ex-coach reveals which of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is most like the Swiss legend<\/a><\/p>\n The post Rafael Nadal reveals his favourite of the 14 French Open finals he won<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rafael Nadal has revealed that the first two sets of his 2020 French Open final victory over Novak Djokovic helped make that the favourite of the 14 championship matches he played at the tournament. \u2018King of Clay\u2019 Nadal memorably dominated the French Open for the best part of two decades, winning 14 of his 22 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n
\n