The 2025 French Open will be the first edition of the tournament without Rafael Nadal since he called it a day on his illustrious career.
The king of clay won a record 14 Roland Garros singles titles and tallied a win-loss record of 112-4 at the tournament.
His only defeats were against Robin Soderling (2009), Novak Djokovic (2015, 2021), and Alexander Zverev (2024).
Nadal, who retired in November, defeated multiple greats of the game throughout his French Open career, one of which was three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka, who spoke on one match he played against the legend where he was devoid of ideas.
Stan Wawrinka recalls the match against Rafael Nadal which was ‘extremely complicated’
Speaking to the media ahead of the tournament, Wawrinka said on Nadal: “The results speak for themselves [with Nadal]. All I want to say for me, in my career, is that it has been the most difficult challenge to play Rafa on clay and even more so at Roland Garros.
“We know how difficult it has been; it is super complicated. I definitely remember the last match we played here – it was the final in 2017. It was extremely complicated.
“He is so strong, so confident, he knows exactly what he has to do on clay. It was one of the biggest challenges in tennis.
“It’s not only clay, we also saw with Rafa, he won everything on all surfaces and on all fields, so he always knew how to adapt to the conditions.”
Stan Wawrinka’s record against Rafael Nadal on clay
Like most players, Wawrinka has a losing record against Nadal on clay, with the head-to-head on the surface 8-1 in favour of the Spaniard.
The Swiss player’s sole victory on the dirt against him came in 2015 at the Italian Open, where Wawrinka emerged victorious in the quarter-final.
Nadal and Wawrinka have played twice at Roland Garros, the first of which was in 2013 when the 22-time Grand Slam champion defeated his opponent in straight sets to advance to the semi-final.
Their final in 2017 also lasted just three sets, as Nadal cruised to victory 6-2, 6-3, 6-1.
In their last meeting on clay, Wawrinka fell once again in the quarter-final of the Madrid Open.
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