By Kamakshi Tandon

No one has been able to pry the French Open title away from Rafael Nadal in any of the three years that he's played there.                   © Francois Guillet/AFP Getty

The victory maintained Nadal’s perfect record at Roland Garros – 21 straight matches and no losses since his debut in 2005. His career record in best-of-five matches on clay is similarly unblemished – 34 wins and no losses.

Since April 2005, the Spaniard has won 88 matches on clay and lost one, which included an 81-match consecutive win streak that shattered not only Guillermo Vilas’ previous clay record of 53 but John McEnroe’s single-surface record of 76.

“I think from the first to the last match, it was my best French Open,” said Nadal. “Winning this title three times in a row is not something unfeasible, because I did it. But it's almost impossible. And in my mind, it seemed very big.”

Even bigger achievements beckon. Come next year, Nadal will be within striking distance of Roland Garros’ most lofty champion – Bjorn Borg, who won the event four times in a row and six times altogether. Nadal, however, is setting an even faster pace than Borg. Like the legendary Swede, the Spaniard’s birthday falls during the Paris fortnight – he turned 21 last week. Borg was 22 the year he won his third crown.

But the remarkable story of Nadal’s achievements on the red clay of Paris is inextricably intertwined with the frustration he has caused Federer in the process.

Every year for the last three years, the world’s top two players have faced off on Court Philippe Chatrier. Every year, Nadal has emerged the winner. His latest victory once again denied Federer the chance to complete a Grand Slam sweep and win the only major still missing from his collection. And this time, even the reserved Swiss could not hide his disappointment.

Win or lose, Federer is famous for graciously accommodating all kinds of media requests and spending endless time doing TV, press and radio interviews in each of the three languages he speaks – English, Swiss German and French.

But this time, he just needed to be alone. Refusing at least one postmatch TV interview, he walked back into the locker room and slumped down quietly. It didn’t last long. “The worst is when the whole team comes up and goes, ‘I'm proud of you, you did a good job, bad luck,” he said. “That is the worst part.”

But Hamburg’s lower-bouncing, powdery surface is not the high-kicking dirt of Roland Garros. After more than three hours of slugging, Federer was forced to slump his shoulders in defeat.

“The court is a little different,” said Nadal. “There [in Hamburg] is not getting as much topspin, here is a little bit more favorable for me.”

The early stages of the match were paradoxical – Federer was the one struggling to get in first serves, but Nadal the one facing break point after break point. After missing five chances to break in the sixth game, including one forehand off a second serve that went into the ne – Federer produced a flurry of errors to get broken to love in the next game and looked weary until the middle of the second set.

Nadal’s relentless high-bouncing drives to Federer’s backhand were keeping the world No. 1 behind the baseline and on the defensive, and the gruelling rallies appeared to be taking their toll.

Then, almost imperceptibly, the fog appeared to lift. Suddenly, Federer was the one controlling play – hitting out on his forehand, slicing his backhand, coming into net, and ultimately winning the second set to even the match.

“I think the second set actually was played in a way that I liked it, because I was deciding if I was going to win or lose a point,” said Federer. “The other sets, I felt like he was dictating play from the baseline.”

A frustrated Roger Federer hopes that his luck will change as the tour changes surfaces.                   © Francois Guillet/AFP Getty

Will the French always be Federer’s Waterloo? He will be 26 when he comes back to try again next year, and it has been suggested that his window of opportunity is closing. But Federer is adamant that he will have more chances in the future.

“The French Open has been very good to me the last few years and I'm confident that I can win here,” he said. “So I feel my window is definitely not getting smaller. I think with experience and my mental fitness, I think – not that the best years are ahead, but the next few years I'll have a good shot in any tournament I'm playing.”

Nadal, by contrast, has good reason to think his best years are still ahead of him. “I feel better this year than last year,” he said. “I am a more complete player. I can go to the net, I can be more aggressive with my forehand and I have improved a bit with my backhand. But I have more to do."

Don’t tell that to Federer, who insisted he sees no change in his chief rival’s game. “I always feel if he was to change his game, he might stop being able to win on clay,” he said. “So I think he needs to keep this game, because with this specific type of game, he's just unbeatable on clay.”

But not on grass, which is where the two now head. The complexion of the rivalry will change as completely as the color beneath the players’ feet – Federer becomes the untouchable one, and Nadal the challenger.

Unusually for a Spaniard, Nadal has named Wimbledon as the title he would most like to win. Last year, he made an unexpected run to the final only to be stopped by Federer in four sets. This spring, the two played a gimmicky exhibition on a half-clay, half-grass court that perfectly satirized the nature of their matchup.

If history must keep repeating itself in Paris, Federer is hoping that it’ll do so in London as well. “It’s always easy to forget the clay season because there was so much talk about it. Once you get on the grass, everything is in the past, you know,” he said. “This is a huge opportunity for me once again, Wimbledon, you know, to win there. And hopefully win my fifth in a row, that would be absolutely incredible.”