Roland Garros - Day 6 - Nadal drops a set !

Day 6 of Roland Garros 2019 and David Goffin (27) was next on the menu for Rafa Nadal to munch on as he strolled through the early rounds of the clay court major he had made his own.

Four times the pair had played each other, and Goffin had won once, but it was indoors on a hard court in the 2017 ATP Finals. The other times were on clay, including last year in Barcelona, and Nadal naturally triumphed on that surface.

Goffin had looked impressive in the first two rounds, but Nadal opened things with a love game on serve, and immediately had three break points on the Belgian serve. He used the second of those to break and lead 2-0. For set one, the frugal Spaniard won 16 of the seventeen points available on his delivery at the line, making it impossible for Goffin to intrude in any way whatsoever on the Nadal serve. Further, Goffin wasted two game points in the fourth game, eventually dropping that game and falling behind 0-4.

Serving at 0-5 to remain alive in the set, Goffin availed himself of some Spanish charity to register a score on the board, but Nadal quickly put that temporary happiness to rest and won the set 6-1.

Set two was much the same for Nadal, except he allowed Goffin some leeway. Truth be told, the second seed was probably needing some match play, and this was how Goffin won more points than in set one.

Just to ensure his total control, Nadal broke serve in the opening game, maintained that key advantage through to a 5-3 lead, and when Goffin attempted to reach 4-5, cut the Belgian down and broke to lead 6-1 6-3.

For eight games of set three, the only break points which surfaced were those in the second game, and Goffin saved all of them.

Deuce wasn’t even visited for the rest of the set.

However, Nadal’s focus must have left Paris to take care of personal business, because his service was broken in the ninth game. Goffin proceeded to win the set 6-4 in the absence of Nadal’s concentration.

The historic loss of a set by Nadal will be discussed and documented for decades in various tennis journals, with nothing useful generated, but the real effect felt on court was the demise of Goffin. The foolishness of daring to keep Nadal on court for longer than three sets was given a 6-3 response.

Rafa Nadal won his way into the round of sixteen 6-1 6-3 4-6 6-3