Second ranked Rafael Nadal of Spain won his 12th French Open and 18th major title on Sunday when he beat the fourth ranked Dominic Thiem of Austria 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 in the men’s singles final. With the win, Nadal has now won more French Open titles than Rod Laver of Australia and Bjorn Borg of Sweden have won total majors as each of them have won 11 majors all-time.
Nadal has the record for winning the most major men’s titles at a single grand slam. Second on the list is Roger Federer of Switzerland, who has won eight Wimbledon titles.
In an amazing statistic, Nadal’s 12 French Open titles alone would place him fourth all-time in grand slam men’s singles titles won. The only three players ahead of Nadal on that list would hypothetically be Federer (20 titles overall), Novak Djokovic of Serbia (15 titles overall) and Pete Sampras of the United States (14 titles overall). If you add the other six titles Nadal has won, he would be second overall on that list as he has won 18 major singles titles (also won three U.S. Open titles, two Wimbledon titles and one Australian Open title).
Nadal is also a perfect 12-0 in French Open men’s finals. In the 12 finals, he has only lost seven sets. Three of those sets came to Federer (first set in 2006 by a score of 6-1, second set in 2007 by a score of 6-4, and third set in 2011 by a score of 7-5), two of those sets came to Djokovic (third set in 2012 by a score of 6-2 and first set in 2014 by a score of 6-3) and one set came to Mariano Puerta of Argentina in a first set tiebreak. Puerta was the first player to lose to Nadal in a French Open men’s singles title in 2005.
Nadal’s French Open record overall is 93-3. Nadal’s only losses came to Robin Soderling of Sweden in the fourth round of the 2009 tournament (6-2, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6), to Djokovic in the quarterfinals of the 2015 tournament (7-5, 6-3, 6-1), and to Marcel Granollers of Spain, who he was forced to retire to after pulling out with a wrist injury in 2016.
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