Live Blog: Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal At The French Open

After the match, in a mostly sullen news conference, Nadal echoed many of the points we made here. Djokovic was the attacker, which enabled him to play so many drop shots. Nadal was not at his best, but will be back here next year. Djokovic is “probably in the best moment of his career.” And then there’s this, suggesting Nadal has a good grasp of probability and a future in sports analytics: “The only thing that is sure is I won [the French Open] nine times. I don’t know if I gonna win 10, but nine I already won.” Djokovic meets the press in 15 minutes, but we’re going to end this live blog here. Thanks to everyone for reading. If you have any suggestions or ideas for how to live-blog tennis or other events in the future, feel free to email or tweet them to me. Now go watch that other men’s quarterfinal today — David Ferrer and Andy Murray are in the fourth set!

Rafael Nadal isn’t done playing tennis. At least that’s what he has said repeatedly at news conferences in Paris during this tournament. On Monday, he said, “If I don’t win, I will think about the next tournament. I will try to make progress.” And last Thursday he said he’d “leave this tour … in one, two, three, four, five, six years, whatever.” Speaking to the press a mere quarter-hour after his loss, Nadal vowed to return. He pointed out that when he lost here in 2009, it wasn’t over — he won the next five years. He said the same applies now. Nevertheless, a friend who’s a Nadal fan flew in to Paris this morning, bought a ticket and got to the grounds before the match. He wanted to see RAFAEL NADAL at the French Open before it was too late. That’s the Nadal who was 66-1 heading into this year at Roland Garros, who’d been forced to a fifth set only twice and who’d won the title in nine of the past 10 years. Unfortunately, my friend may have arrived a year too late. Nadal today was not the Nadal of past French Open triumphs. He showed flashes — in that furious comeback in the first set, in confidently holding serve early in the second — but then he did what Nadal isn’t supposed to do: He collapsed. He lost nine of the last 10 games. And it’s a credit to Nadal’s greatness at this tournament that this was so surprising. All great players have off days. Roger Federer was also straight-setted out of the tournament yesterday by Stan Wawrinka. Pete Sampras never made a final here. I’m pretty sure, though, that the Novak Djokovic we saw today would have given even peak Nadal a tough fight. In every aspect of the game, including the tactical one, Djokovic was dominant. It’s difficult to say whether Djokovic today is the best player of all time. (Asked that question after Djokovic dismantled him Monday, Richard Gasquet said, “Federer can play some unbelievable tennis.”) But it’s also fairly clear that Djokovic isn’t done making his case. He has to win two more matches to win this title for the first time. Good luck finding someone taking even money to say he won’t. CORRECTIONS (June 4, 10:21 a.m.): An earlier version of this post stated that Rafael Nadal had played a five-set match only once at the French Open. He has played two five-set matches. It also stated that Nadal had won the French Open four years in a row after losing in 2009. He won five years in a row.

Nadal double-faults on match point — which Djokovic did against him in the 2012 final here — and it’s over. Djokovic was widely expected to win this match, but I doubt many people expected Nadal to win just nine games. What looked like an incredibly tough test for Djokovic — facing the best clay-courter ever on his favorite court — turned into yet another routine demolition of a fellow Top 10 player. Djokovic is playing some of the best tennis the sport has ever seen. The embrace at net was warm though brief, and Nadal got some cheers from the crowd as he walked off, though not what he deserves for all he has done here. I think mostly the crowd is dazed that it all ended so quickly. So am I.

Nadal keeps fighting, running down smashes and making Djokovic play another ball. But the world No. 1 is just too solid, and holds to move within a game of his first win over Nadal here in seven tries. Nadal will fall to No. 10 in the rankings if he loses — and No. 11 if Jo-Wilfried Tsonga wins his semifinal Friday against Stan Wawrinka. Nadal hasn’t been ranked below No. 7 since he was 18, in April 2005. That’s how aging goes in sports. On Nadal’s 29th birthday today, he’s regressed from his peak and is playing closer to how he did as a teenager taking the sport by storm. That doesn’t mean he can’t improve from here — Roger Federer bounced back last year from a tough 2013, even as he turned 33. But Nadal has a long way to climb to get back to the top, and with a lower ranking he’ll keep getting tough draws like today’s. Oh, and his favorite part of the season, the one on clay, pretty much ends today if he loses.

Carl and I talk all the time about whether players play major tournaments differently. Let’s use Nadal as an example: In his career, as noted below, Nadal had gone 94 straight best-of-five matches on clay without dropping the first two sets. That’s great! However, he has lost the “first two” sets of best-of-three matches 19 times (in 299 matches) — or about once every 16 matches. We can calculate the odds of someone who loses at a rate of 19/299 going 94-0 using everyone’s favorite Excel function, binom.dist. (Like so, nerds: =BINOM.DIST(0,94,19/299,TRUE)) If events were totally random, the chance that Nadal would never lose the first two sets of 94 best-of-five matches: 0.2 percent. Four of those instances when Nadal lost the first two sets have come this year (in 22 matches), and eight came in 2004 or earlier — before he won his first French Open (in 42 matches). In his 10-year peak between 2005 and 2014, he lost only seven matches on clay in straight sets, of 205 three-set matches.

Nadal has often had trouble getting the love in Paris — the crowds preferred Roger Federer. And now he’s getting no love from the Parisian netcord, with Djokovic clinching yet another tight game with a net-cord winner. Nadal needs to extend the match long enough for the net-cord luck to even out. He seemed prepared for defeat, should it come, when speaking in his news conference after his fourth-round win Monday. “My career won’t stop after the quarterfinal of Roland Garros,” Nadal said. “I have already lost at Roland Garros, and if I lose in the quarterfinal, it means that I would have lost against the best player in the world. Djokovic is an excellent player, is physically fit, and is in form.”

A tight net cord is a great source of comic relief in tennis. Two players are firing at each other, among the very best in the world at what they do — and then a ball trickles over the net for a winner, not because of great spin and touch but because the shot happened to hit the net cord and fall on the other side. Djokovic just got one of those to fall his way on his third break point and now leads by two sets and two breaks. He certainly didn’t need the luck. At least at this point it looks like this stroke of luck won’t be decisive — Djokovic is leading by too much for any one point or game to matter. Then again, if Nadal mounts a comeback like he did in the first set, it might.

One reason Djokovic has been so successful against Nadal is that he is willing to attack Nadal unpredictably. For instance, in big points on his serve — 30-30, deuce or facing break points — in three of their recent clay meetings, Djokovic has gone to Nadal’s forehand and backhand almost equally, and has been about as successful with both tactics. (That’s again courtesy of David Flatow, using Match Charting Project data.) Nadal favors Djokovic’s backhand, on big points and otherwise. Most opponents would naturally target Nadal’s backhand, but do anything too often in sports and you turn an opponent’s weakness into a strength. There’s evidence that players serve more conservatively on big points — for instance, double-faulting less often — but that, too, can become an exploitable pattern. Djokovic plays a great game and might also be a great game theorist.

Djokovic steam-rolls on as Nadal hits a poor smash right at Djokovic and then misses the follow-up volley, to fall behind by a break right at the start of the third set. This is the fourth straight year they’re meeting in a final or de facto final here, and the fourth straight year in which Nadal had looked vulnerable coming in. This is the first time Djokovic has been able to come out in top form and capitalize on Nadal’s vulnerability, sustaining his level through two-plus sets.

Djokovic has just become the first man to win the first two sets in a best-of-five-set match on clay against Nadal. Can he become the first to straight-set him, and the second to beat him in Paris in 72 matches? Speaking of serve-and-volley, Djokovic did it at deuce after Nadal had saved set points — and came up with a jaw-dropping, fist-pump-worthy half-volley winner. Usually when I see a player pull off an incredible shot like that, I assume he or she is about to regress to the mean. Not this time — Djokovic closed out the set on the next point. Oh, and more good news for Djokovic: They’re watering the court.

For the first time in his career, Rafael Nadal finds himself down 0-2 in a best-of-five clay-court match. He’s played 95 of those.

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Djokovic gets the first break of the set and will serve for a two-sets-to-none lead over Nadal. I mentioned earlier that Djokovic has a knack for breaking Nadal in Nadal’s last service game of a set. If Djokovic holds here, he’ll have done it twice today. Oh, and if Djokovic holds here, we’ll be in uncharted territory. Nadal has never lost the first two sets of a best-of-five set match on clay.

I hear ESPN switched to the Andy Murray-David Ferrer tiebreaker a few minutes ago. With no floodlights here and a 2 p.m. start, men’s quarterfinals get played simultaneously, as do women’s quarterfinals. It’s like the last match of the group stage of a World Cup, only without any reason to prevent tactical losing. (Unless Murray and Ferrer really don’t want to play the winner of this match.) Murray, like Djokovic, is undefeated on clay this year, which is stunning considering he’d never reached a clay final before this year.

What is this, Wimbledon? Both men have started coming to net more often, and done so effectively. These two — with their baseline-based games and heavy topspin — are the poster children for how the modern game has forsaken serve-and-volley tennis, and we won’t see much of that here. But it’s nice to see, despite earlier misses, that they’re both willing to come in behind strong shots. Rod Laver would be proud.

This set has moved comparatively quickly, with relatively easy holds for both men. Djokovic is asking for the court to be watered, which is done regularly on clay to make it less dusty and easier to grip with tennis shoes. The drier conditions suit Nadal, whose topspin forehand explodes more off a dry court. Djokovic is playing well in spite of it. Although Nadal won four games in a row in the first set, Djokovic has felt in control of this match throughout. Roger Federer, who has lost 23 of 33 matches against Nadal, often has said he feels like he is in control of the outcome when they meet. And in a sense, he’s right — but Nadal makes him take too many risky shots, and miss too often. Djokovic is the aggressor here, and is in control. And he’s not missing much. And, as happens so much in the live-blogging (and TV commentating) business, just as you’re trying to impose narrative on sports, events shatter it. Call it regression to the mean. Nadal seizes control from 15-30 in his service game with two good approach shots and net putaways and then wins the game with an unreturned second serve. He hasn’t lost control quite yet.

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Nadal is 12-1 in five-set matches on clay after dropping the first set (93-1 overall), including against Djokovic in last year’s French Open finals, where he lost the first set 6-3 before winning the next three 7-5, 6-2, 6-4. Despite this, Djokovic’s chances on Pinnacle have remained around 85-89 percent since he won the first set. Markets don’t care much about history.

The press seats are great in Chatrier, except no outlets. I’m switching laptops — and we’re barely into the second set!

Let’s take a closer look at the drop shot. It’s a popular weapon on clay, for a couple of reasons: Players stay farther back in the court to handle the high bounce, and the surface reacts sharply to the shot’s sidespin and backspin, keeping it low and swerving away from the player rushing to play it. But it’s a dangerous shot to use against either of these players, because they are so fast and so good at handling the shot, often by countering with a drop shot of their own — as Djokovic did in Nadal’s first service game of the second set. We know that when these two play each other on clay, Djokovic uses the tactic much more than Nadal does. We know this because of the work of volunteers who chart matches, shot by shot, and because of the help of David Flatow, a data-science graduate student at Stanford, whom I’ve been working with to analyze the charting stats. According to Flatow’s analysis of three recent matches between the pair on clay, they each hit a drop shot to each other’s forehand twice, but Djokovic hit 23 drop shots toward Nadal’s backhand, compared with just five by Nadal to Djokovic’s backhand. They each won the point about three out of five times they employed it. That’s not as impressive as it sounds, because players usually hit the shot when they are already in control of the point. But it’s a strategy that pays off even when it’s not used, by keeping the opponent honest. Djokovic likes it partly because he’s very good at executing it, and also because he typically stands closer to the net, making it easier to pull off. Keep watching for the drop shot — it has already played a big role in this match and likely will continue to do so.

Net play decided the set’s decisive game. Djokovic won the game’s first point and then — perhaps mindful of his miss earlier — didn’t come to net even when he had Nadal stretched wide. That allowed Nadal to take over the point and win. Then Nadal hit a volley that wasn’t quite good enough to finish the point at 30-15, got an easy lob from Djokovic, and, in a huge rarity for him, missed the smash. Djokovic got yet another set point, Nadal came forward, Djokovic hit a better lob — and Nadal’s smash almost went into the net, but trickled over the cord for a winner. Djokovic got another set point with a confident backhand volley winner. Then at deuce yet again, this time he did come forward to play a Nadal slice at net, and he smashed it for a winner. Then Djokovic forced a volley miss by Nadal with a great forehand to take the first set. By the way, this match is 67 minutes old now. That’s longer than the two sets Serena Williams needed to win the previous match on court. These guys play long sets. Their 2012 Australian Open final was five sets and took nearly six hours. Good thing they give us lots of material to write!

Lost in the sauce today: Andy Murray. He’s a two-time French Open semifinalist, and if he can escape David Ferrer without extending himself too much (they’re playing now on another court), Murray might be able to exploit a weary Djokovic or Nadal in the next round. With one more win, Murray will tie the great Fred Perry for the most match wins at the French Open by a Brit (28).

Another example of the market responding to form: Djokovic’s chances (according to Pinnacle) jumped from about 75 percent (where they’ve been lingering as both players have held serve) to about 82 percent after pushing Nadal on the game Nadal was serving down 5-4, even though Nadal eventually won.

Djokovic holds easily, with yet another drop shot followed by a lob winner. If Nadal holds and we get a tiebreaker, it’ll be a relatively rare occurrence in this rivalry. They’ve played just 12 tiebreakers in 43 matches, with Nadal winning eight. Their last tiebreaker was seven matches and almost two years ago! It goes to show how return-dominated the rivalry is. The more likely players are to break, the less likely they are to break the same number of times in a set and get to six games apiece. Both men have served fairly well today, yet four of the 11 games so far have been breaks.

Hard to believe, but Rafael Nadal has played Novak Djokovic 11 more times (44) than he’s played Roger Federer. It’s the most prolific matchup in the Open era. As for Djokovic, he’s played Federer 39 times, the second-most-frequent head-to-head. We often speak of Andy Roddick being around in the worst possible era, but no one has had to face more roadblocks down the stretch of major tournaments than Djokovic.

How important is the first set for these two guys? Djokovic is 16-3 when he wins the first set versus Nadal. Nadal is 20-4 when he wins the first set versus Djokovic.

Djokovic has a knack, since 2011, of breaking Nadal in Nadal’s final service game of the set, and he very nearly did it here, forcing Nadal to save three set points. Djokovic got the second with yet another backhand-to-backhand drop shot followed by an impeccable lob that Nadal somehow almost chased down. (Have we mentioned these guys are really good?) Nadal saved it with one of his own. Then, at deuce, Nadal got his first time-violation warning. It doesn’t cost him anything, but the second will cost a first serve. Nadal routinely goes over the 20-second limit between serves at Grand Slams, but players — and many ex-players-turned-commentators — think it’s bad form to call one on a critical point. Djokovic won the next point and then Nadal saved yet another set point with yet another backhand-to-backhand drop shot before closing out the longest game of the match so far.

I’ve been watching the betting markets, and they’ve been swinging rapidly as they respond not only to new match situations but to any clues as to who is in better form. For example, according to sports-betting site Pinnacle Sports, Djokovic was about 88 percent to win the match when leading Nadal 4-2, giving the defending champion only a 12 percent chance. But after Nadal’s break at 4-2, Djokovic dropped to 76 percent – doubling Rafa’s chances.

Djokovic holds at love and moves within a game of winning this set despite Nadal’s comeback. The first set matters, of course, but it’s not entirely predictive of who’s going to win. It matters less here, first of all, because like at all Grand Slams but unlike most of their 43 meetings, it’s a best-of-five-set match. So any one set matters less. Nadal has won seven of eight of their meetings in best-of-fives when winning the first set and one of three when losing it. Two of the wins in the Grand Slam rivalry by a player who lost the first set have come in their last five meetings — including in last year’s final here.

Nadal has come storming back to win four straight games. He just held at love, including two aces to Djokovic’s forehand wing from the ad court. Nadal directed nearly four times as many serves to opponents’ backhands as forehands heading into this match, but he’d be wise to mix it up more against Djokovic, who has a great backhand return.

Serving at 4-2, Djokovic botched a high volley that was a hesitant half-overhead. Djokovic’s overhead is famously weak; according to Jeff Sackmann, who blogs at heavytopspin.com, Djokovic hits only 41 percent of smashes for winners, while the rest of the tour hits 59 percent — and he makes unforced errors on the shot at nearly twice the rate of other players. Perhaps his most famous muff came down match point at the 2008 Olympic semifinal in Beijing — and it came against Nadal.

Djokovic went one for three on easy putaways near the net in his service game, and those two misses helped Nadal break him again. We’re back on serve. The rallies have been getting longer, the grunting louder. Djokovic was winning a higher percentage of rallies with at least nine shots at this tournament than Nadal — 60 percent to 55 percent — but in this matchup Djokovic would rather finish points early. He seems shaken by Nadal’s rally and is going for questionable shots — shots that he’s missing — too often in these last three games. Strange match so far: We haven’t had too many points with both players playing well at the same time. Of course, that has a lot to do with what the guy on the other side of the court is doing to make his opponent uncomfortable.

Nadal cruised through a service game after getting broken in his first two. Djokovic looks more tentative. And one of his biggest — perhaps his only? — weaknesses just surfaced. At the net, he sent an easy putaway right into it. Despite being coached by Boris Becker, one of the all-time greats at net, Djokovic still struggles more than his biggest rivals there.

Although Djokovic often gets angry at himself on court, and sometimes at the chair umpire, he’s generally more amiable than that. He just gave Nadal a thumbs-up for ripping a backhand passing shot winner down the line, which earned Nadal a break point. Djokovic could give himself a thumbs-down for getting a little too predictable in that game. He attacked Nadal’s backhand when he was already camped out in that corner and then went there on break point and missed long. It’s easy in theory to attack Nadal’s forehand wing, harder in practice to maintain the nerve to do it.

Djokovic has gone to the drop shot early and often. Watch for him to hit it from his backhand side to Nadal’s backhand side. Nadal has more trouble ripping a shot low off the court from there. By my count Djokovic has won four of five times he has employed this tactic, and he could have won all five if he hadn’t hit a poor lob that Nadal dispatched well with his unusually effective backhand smash. The fifth one led to the most entertaining point of the match by far, which featured drop shots, lobs, smashes and both men running all over the court. Djokovic won it, as he has most points in this match. He’s dominating — so much so that Nadal cheers a Djokovic miss with “vamos” to start the next game. Nadal has had to look hard to find positives so far.

Despite Nadal’s 70-1 record at the French Open, if there’s one person who should be able to beat him, it’s Djokovic. Even when you put aside Nadal’s poorer form this season, Djokovic has played Nadal approximately even on clay this decade. Although he has no French Open wins to Nadal’s five in that time, Djokovic has won six of 11 matches on clay between them in all events, and they’ve split their last 28 sets 14-14.

The conditions are pretty ideal for spectators: warm, not hot, not much wind in what is often a very windy court. Nadal would probably prefer it to be hotter: His topspinny shots explode off the court more when there’s heat. But he must be glad to be back on Court Philippe Chatrier after playing his last two matches on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, the second court here. Chatrier has much more room behind the baseline for Nadal to chase down shots. He is comfortable roaming deep in the court. Djokovic would rather play closer to the baseline and rush Nadal, and so far he is doing just that.

Let me start out a live blog about a men’s match with a little love for Serena Williams, who has reached a major semifinals for the 27th time in her career. She has won 19 of those previous 26, including two of three at the French, all six at the Australian Open, five of eight at Wimbledon, and six of nine at the U.S. Open. Her record deep in major tournaments is unprecedented in modern tennis history. Here’s a chart showing how she compares to other greats that we published last September: Since then, she has also won the Australian and made it this far in the French, so her position has improved on both axes. Oddsmakers consider her a big favorite to win for the third time at Roland Garros, which would be three majors in a row. Can she win another Serena Slam (holding all four majors at the same time) at age 33? (Her first was at age 21.) She has won Wimbledon in three of her past six entries but has gone out in the third and fourth rounds in the past two years. If she pulls that off, she’d have only the U.S. Open – which she has owned of late – between her and being the first person to own the calendar-year Grand Slam since Steffi Graf in 1988.

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Djokovic held at love and then broke at 15. And he did it by playing Nadal in a way few players are good enough, or confident enough, to do: attacking Nadal’s forehand early and often. It’s Nadal’s best shot, but because he wants to play it so much, he often camps out in his backhand side so he can hit forehands from anywhere on the court. Djokovic showed that he is capable of firing shots into Nadal’s forehand corner and forcing Nadal to play defensively. And he finished off points near the net confidently. He is in fearsome form through the first two games. But recall he won the first set last year and then lost the next three.

Djokovic will serve first. His serve has been broken only three times so far in four matches this tournament. He starts the match with a backhand winner.

In the umpire’s chair: veteran Cedric Mourier. That means no Pascal Maria, who correctly penalized Djokovic for running into the net two years ago. And no Carlos Bernardes, whom Nadal asked to be taken off his matches for a while after a flap over Nadal’s request to change his shorts mid-match. Let’s hope Mourier’s name isn’t a memorable part of this match — so it’s remembered for the play, not how it was called.

Nadal and Djokovic have taken the court, to big applause. The stands are about 80 percent full, and it looks like 80 percent of the people here are wearing the same straw hat. The tournament sells it, and must get half its revenue from the thing. I’m hatless, sitting in the shade of the press seats, which are fuller than they’ve been all tournament.

The match is starting shortly, now that Serena Williams has beaten Sara Errani in 65 minutes, 6-1, 6-3, to advance to the semifinals. It was her easiest match here so far, and all her biggest rivals are already out of the tournament. Quite a ticket for Court Philippe Chatrier today — probably the best women’s player of all time, followed by two of the best men of all time.

At FiveThirtyEight, we reserve live blogs for the really important events: A rare Game Seven of the World Series, national elections in the U.S. and U.K. — and a men’s quarterfinal match at the French Open. OK, so that doesn’t sound quite as important. But this is no ordinary quarterfinal. It’s between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Nadal is the defending champion. But that phrase undersells his accomplishments here in Paris. This is his 11th time playing the French Open. He has won nine times. He has won 70 of 71 matches. He has been pushed to a fifth set in just two of his wins. He is the most dominant player at a single Grand Slam tournament in men’s tennis history. But he is aging — turning 29 today, in fact — and vulnerable. Coming into the tournament he was 80 percent of his best on clay. When you include this year’s matches, he is now up to 81 percent. Djokovic has never won the French Open. It’s the biggest missing accomplishment in his extraordinary career. He is the best tennis player in the world at the moment, by far. He has won 48 of his last 50 matches, including 21 of 22 against fellow Top 10 players — including a comfortable defeat of Nadal on clay two months ago. Djokovic has lost to Nadal six times at the French Open, including each of the past three years. Never have his chances to beat Nadal here looked better — they’re so good that betting markets make him a comfortable favorite. After spending the first half of his career chasing Nadal and Roger Federer, Djokovic has been better than them for most of the past five years, just about everywhere and on every surface — except against Nadal, here. He’s already one of the best players ever. Winning today would elevate him closer to the realm of Federer and Nadal, among the very few with a reasonable claim to the greatest of all time. Although his best rivalry has been against Federer, his biggest rival has been Nadal, whom he has played 43 times. Oh, and lest this all sound too heavy, rest assured it should also be a lot of fun. We should see incredible rallies — like, literally unbelievable to people who haven’t seen tennis in 20 years. We’ll see great shotmaking and defense. And maybe we’ll see something totally wacky, like when Djokovic lost a lead here two years ago after touching the net before his shot bounced twice. We also won’t see a champion crowned, though the winner today will be the heavy favorite to win more matches and the title. So join us for about as good of a quarterfinal as you’ll ever see. I’m at the match in Paris, while my FiveThirtyEight colleague Ben Morris is watching from Los Angeles. We may also get some contributions from our colleagues at Grantland and ESPN. We’ll have some of our usual statistical analysis, general tennis talk and other musings. And if there’s something you want us to address, please email or tweet it to me!