Remember Paris, 2005: Chang On Nadal's First Triumph

A 16-year-old Rafael Nadal should have made his Grand Slam debut at Roland Garros in 2003, only to suffer an elbow injury during practice leading up to the event. The Mallorcan’s coming out party was once again put on hold the following year due to a stress fracture in his left ankle.

“I think in certain aspects it probably made him very hungry,” says Michael Chang, the 1989 champion.

While Chang’s triumph in Paris - when he became the youngest men’s Grand Slam champion at 17 years of age - came as a bit of a surprise, Nadal had already proved that he was a force to be reckoned with by the time he finally stepped on the Roland Garros courts.

In the year between the 2004 and 2005 championships, Nadal had won his first six ATP World Tour titles - all on clay - including a pair of Masters 1000 titles at Monte-Carlo and Rome. He had Grand Slam experience under his belt, highlighted by a fourth-round run at the Australian Open earlier that year, and also boasted a 17-match winning streak entering Paris.

“Ironically it was his first French Open, but he was seeded four in the tournament already,” remembers Chang. “He already knew how to win. It was just a matter of getting on that clay, which he has been so extremely dominant at that period of time. He did have actually a very good draw that first year, though I don’t know that necessarily would’ve made a difference.

“I think he was already a heavy favourite to certainly, if not win, certainly to go out there and do extremely well. It’s not like he came out of nowhere and we said, who is this guy?” 

Nadal marched past Lars Burgsmuller, Xavier Malisse, Richard Gasquet, Sebastien Grosjean and David Ferrer with the loss of just one set, and then came face-to-face with World No. 1 Roger Federer in the semi-finals. The pair had met in the Miami final a couple months earlier, a match Federer had battled from two sets down to prevail in five, and Chang reckons that Nadal called upon that experience in Paris.

“I know that for me, having lost to [John] McEnroe the previous year at the French was actually a really good experience for me because it helped me to get a good gauge of what it’s like to play against a top-ranked player on a very big stage,” he says.

While Chang produced a classic Davis versus Goliath take-down of World No. 1 Ivan Lendl in the Round of 16 after four hours and 39 minutes, Nadal needed less than three hours to defeat Federer 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in overcast conditions. “He’d already beaten some of the big-name players and now putting him on his favourite surface, on the red clay, it was a surprise, but not so much a shock because you knew his capability already,” says Chang.

“That definitely was a pretty big win for both of us at that stage. Obviously, a fair bit of notice that we’re both playing really well. I think that normally what happens is that you have a really big win and when you’re young, it’s easy to kind of have a letdown. You have a big win, and then the following match you play, it’s tough because of all the commotion; you received a lot of attention, a lot of accolades already, and a lot of times the next match you don’t play as well.”

Neither Chang nor Nadal suffered letdowns in the matches to follow. Chang capped off his dream run with a five-set win over Stefan Edberg in the final, while Nadal defeated unseeded Argentine Mariano Puerta, 6-7(6), 6-3, 6-1, 7-5, to become just the second player since Mats Wilander in 1982 to win Roland Garros on debut.

“From a very young age, he was saying his dream was to win the French Open and you can see it,” says Chang. “Whenever he’s out on the red clay courts at Roland Garros, there is an extra fire, an extra intensity, if you can possibly see that in someone like Rafa.”

REMEMBER PARIS
2005: Chang On The First Triumph
2006: Kuerten On Being Defending Champion
2007: Moya On Playing Nadal
2008: Gilbert On A Dominant Performance
2010: Wilander On A Momentous Win
2011: Agassi On Nadal's Clay Form

2012 Tribute: Roland Garros Is Rafa's House