Great Grand Nadal

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There is a new Dai-Yokozuna (=Great Grand Champion): with the 10th Grand Slam title of his career, Rafael Nadal joined this most exclusive of clubs that, other than himself, counts only Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer among its members on the men's side, and Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, and Serena Williams on the womens'. Fittingly, Nadal acquired access at Roland Garros, the location of his greatest successes, including his first major title in 2005. As fittingly, to get there Nadal had to beat once more his old rival and living legend Roger Federer--as had been the case when Nadal obtained his Ozeki (=Champion) promotion at Roland Garros 2006, and his Yokozuna (=Grand Champion) promotion at Wimbledon 2008.

The final was closer than earlier Nadal-Federer encounters at the French Open. Federer had an excellent start, outplaying Nadal with agressive, variable tennis, and should have won the first set, but gave away a 5-2, 40:30 lead. Thereafter Nadal took command, and at the beginning of the second set it looked as if Federer would once again crumble under the relentless pressure of his running, groaning, fighting, top-spinning opponent. But Federer refused to melt and found a way back into the second set. From then on it was a tight, hard-fought, classy final, which Nadal finally turned in his favor, 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-1.

Federer's 23rd participation in a Grand Slam final (he is 16-7) denied Novak Djokovic the promotion to Yokozuna (see two stories below). The Serb now needs to win Wimbledon to join Nadal and Federer at the highest rank. Until then, he will get company at Ozeki by his buddy Andy Murray, who at last made it to the second-highest rank by putting two good Grand Slam tournaments together back-to-back (final at the AO 2011, semifinal here). Tomas Berdych went out early and goes kadoban--i.e., he needs a quarterfinal at Wimbledon to stay at Ozeki, a rank he had obtained last year with strong results at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.

So great is the dominance of Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Murray that after this tournament there will be no Sekiwake (=Junior Champion I)--there is no player with sufficiently good results over the past three slams. The Komusubi (=Junior Champion II) ranks will be filled by ex-Sekiwake Robin Soderling and by Gael Monfils, who makes a comeback at Komusubi after 3 years.

Here are the men's sanyaku (=championship) ranks following the 2011 French Open:

Men

Career rank 1/	East	Current Rank	West	Career rank 1/
High Sanyaku (Senior Champion Ranks)
Y	Rafael Nadal	Y	Roger Federer	Y
O	Novak Djokovic	O1	Andy Murray	O
O	Tomas Berdych*	O2	-	-
Lower Sanyaku (Junior Champion Ranks)
-	-	S	-	-
S	Robin Soderling	K	Gael Monfils	K

1/ Highest sanyaku rank achieved in a player's career
* Kadoban