With the announcement of Rafael Nadal’s retirement this Thursday, Olivier Mutis will remain the only Frenchman to have beaten the Spaniard on clay during a rich career. Joined by RMC Sport, he expressed his pride in this feat made official 20 years later.
“A little sad like all tennis fans”, Olivier Mutis also welcomed the announcement of Rafael Nadal’s retirement next November, with a touch of pride this Thursday. He will remain the only French player to have beaten the Spaniard on clay.
“It’s the good news of the day anyway,” smiles the former player to RMC Sport. “I didn’t hide from myself that it didn’t bother me to keep this little record. As much as I didn’t worry about it for 18 years, it’s true that in the last two years, I was starting to say to myself: why not to stay alone because it’s quite gratifying. Today, I’m quite happy to have this feat of arms which will stay with me until the end.”
“I didn’t imagine what it would become 20 years later”
This goes back to September 2004 in the round of 16 of the Palermo tournament (6-3, 6-3). Mutis, then aged 26 and 105th player in the world, took on the new rising star of world tennis, aged 18 and ranked 50th in the ATP rankings, in 1h26. “Even if Nadal was not yet world number one, dominant, he was ranked between 30th and 40th in the world, we were starting to hear about him as a future great champion,” recalls Mutis. “I have the memory of this victory and of having had a big match. Even if he was not yet at the top, he did not give up a match. I had realized the small feat but I did not I couldn’t imagine what it would become 20 years later.”
The Lorraine measures the scope two decades later but he only owes it to the gigantic track record subsequently acquired by his one-day victim, according to him. “I often say that the feat still comes from him, even if I beat him that day,” he agrees. “It is through these records and through his strength that he made this record exist. He created so many things on clay that mean that a victory can last 20 years, and now more. It is thanks to himself if that day, I was at the right time as it was necessary, I took advantage of it a little.”
Picked up by his non-selection in the Davis Cup the previous weekend
The former 71st in the world (his best ranking) remembers taking advantage of his game which disturbed the Spaniards. “They generally need time to shift on the forehand and hurt with this volume on the forehand, which Nadal does very well,” he says. “I managed to take the ball a little earlier and it’s true that I was bothering them.” The context also played a role in this feat. “He was starting to be in the media, he arrived with his tank tops and we talked a lot about that and about him because he was very promising,” he says. “It was already a special match at the time. I had found additional motivation because he had played against France a few days earlier in the Davis Cup and I had not been selected. I wanted to show that it “It was perhaps a mistake not to take me knowing that he had beaten all the French at the weekend. It was still a bit of a special match at the time.”
But not his greatest memory. Olivier Mutis instead retains his 32nd final of Roland-Garros won a few months earlier against the American Andy Roddcik (3-6, 6-3, 6-7, 6-3, 6-2). “It’s the one (the feat against Nadal) which touches the most people and which is the most publicized,” he concludes. “But I had more fun beating Roddick on the Suzanne-Lenglen at Roland. Even if it was on the central (against Nadal) in Palermo, it was a small court in a night session with my father in the stands but there weren’t too many people and we can’t compare with a five-set match at Roland in front of 15,000 people. It was perhaps not the best tennis or emotional memory but it is, by far. , the one who remains the most.”
Olivier Mutis finally retired a year later, without ever having exchanged with his one-day opponent who had become a legend. “We might have met again in the following year because we did roughly the same tournaments. If we met, there might have been a little nod of the head. I stopped for a year afterwards and I haven’t set foot on the circuit for 20 years, even at Roland.” He came back to it a little by proxy this Thursday.
Nicolas Couet Journalist RMC Sport
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