Rafael Nadal walks crestfallen on the clay of Rome’s center court. He is exhausted. He has been in the game for four hours and five minutes and is on the ropes. His right hand just ended up in the net and he went to the chair with a grim expression. It is his first final in Rome, it is May 2005, and he is losing 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6 and 0-3 against Guillermo Coria.
The Argentine, who is nicknamed The Wizardreaches 3-0 and 30-0 with a double break in that fifth set. Nadal recovers, achieves two breaks and ties at four. But Coria returns to the fray and has a break point to go up 5-4. A few minutes later it is Nadal who enjoys a match point to the rest with 6-5 in his favor. But everything is decided in the tie break. There, Nadal wastes two more match points, the second with a double fault, until Finally, five hours and 14 minutes after the first point, a Coria volley is lost at the back of the court and Nadal falls to the ground. Roman beat to celebrate their first title in the Italian capital. The score reflects 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6 and 7-6 (8-6). It is a very dark night in Rome – everything had started in the middle of the afternoon, with a blazing sun – and Nadal, 18, has just made his first nadalada.
It is true that the Spaniard had already won two matches in the fifth set – in the 2004 US Open against Heuberger and in Australia 2005 against Youzhny -, but that Sunday in Rome It was a before and after in his careera journey that will come to an end in the coming weeks in Malaga. It was his first skirmish, his first battle of more than five hours. He was on the verge of his first participation in Roland Garros – which he would end up winning – and he gave one of those lessons that he would repeat so many times over time.
Therefore, when they asked him a few months ago what memory he would keep from all his participations, the 22-time Grand Slam champion chose that final with Coria. Nadal would eventually win nine more titles in Rome – four against Novak Djokovic and two against Roger Federer–Even the following year, in 2006, he knocked down the Swiss 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 2-6 and 7-6 in five hours, but Coria is on the podium of podiums. That fifth set against The Wizard It was a match in itself: the YouTube recap is 28 minutes long and more than half of it is that fifth set.
“I was very young, I had all the energy, I have always been a very passionate person, not only as an athlete, but also as a fan. Winning that first time, the way it was, with a great level of tennis for 5 hours and 14 minutes… I was losing 3-0 in the fifth, the atmosphere was incredible,” recalled the 22-time Grand Slam champion.
Nadal was at that time number seven in the world ranking and arrived in Rome launched after winning for the first time in Monte Carlo and Barcelona. His name sounded louder and louder. Coria, four years older, had reached the Roland Garros final the previous season – in which he wasted a two-set lead over his compatriot Gastón Gaudio – and already knew what it was like to win eight titles. He wasn’t just anyone.
“Rafa made me know every inch of Rome’s central court. He also ran,” Coria himself said a few days ago in an interview in Marca. “I didn’t win that final in Rome, but the best guy won and he ended up proving it in the following years. He deserved to win that battle because he was better at that moment and marked his path. He began writing his story in Monte Carlo a few weeks before and continued in Rome and did not stop winning. “I’m grateful because he brought out things that I wouldn’t have imagined, like the blows I threw in that game.”
The nostalgia of the five sets
“I think I’ll take the first one,” Nadal responded in May when asked to choose a souvenir from Rome. “All moments are unforgettable, but many of the important moments in tennis history have been in best-of-five-set matches“.
The 2006 season was the last in which the Masters 1000 finals were played in the best of five sets. Nadal went on to win six finals in that format and now remembers it with nostalgia.
“What makes tennis more exciting, more dramatic and gets people involved are best-of-five-set matches. Somehow I miss when we played five sets. Those battles are part of the history of our sport. I have won ten times here, but, if you ask me about my memories, the memories of the first years against Coria and Federer are fresher than the other eight,” Nadal recalled. “I have had very good matches afterwards against Novak and other rivals, but what people remember and what I remember is that“.
“It was the first time I won in Monte Carlo, in Barcelona and then in Rome. They are tournaments that have a lot of tradition and since I was a child I watched these tournaments on TV. Winning in Rome was incredible for me at that time.”
