TENNIS FRENCH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS:THE RECORDS continue to tumble before Rafael Nadal like opponents. Whatever self-deprecation the extraordinary Spaniard feels compelled to bring to the victory podium, he is at a plateau beyond the reach of even Roger Federer at the moment.

Certainly he is out of sight of Robin Soderling, whom he obliterated in straight sets – 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 – on Court Philippe Chatrier yesterday to win his fifth French Open in six years in front of an entranced gathering of admirers who have come to take his brilliance here for granted.

Some of the shots he played were not only too good for the bewildered Swede, they would probably have been too good for Nadal. For the second time in three years, Nadal has put his name on the Coupe des Mousquetaires without dropping a set in the seven matches it takes, the last player to do that was Bjorn Borg in 1980.

Nadal, who leapfrogs Federer to number one in the world, has now won four clay titles on the spin this year and dropped only two sets, in Rome and Madrid. Over the past fortnight he conceded a mere 71 games. Soderling, who had a storming tournament up until the final, lost 93.

What this sequence of excellence has done is invest Wimbledon with renewed and exciting possibilities: if Nadal can do to Federer on grass this month what he did to such stunning effect in 2008, before injury and his own private troubles cut him down to something like mortality, he will have established contemporary dominance over the one player qualified to challenge him as the best in the sport.

Any notion that Soderling – who beat him when he was operating on one leg and half a heart in the fourth round here last year – was such a player endured for about half an hour of the 218 minutes this public execution lasted.

“I never thought to have the chance to win this tournament,” he said in that beguiling, faltering English that defies parody. “Five titles, five times or Monte Carlo six or Barcelona five, I think, too, or Rome for me five. For me that’s more than a dream. When I see these titles and these numbers, for me is amazing. I don’t know how I did.”

Soderling, who looked awesome putting out Federer in the quarter-finals, had one obvious route to success: get the howitzers out. If he indulged in long rallies, if he got drawn into exchanges that put stress on a physique not best suited to the sliding clay, he would surely build a rhythm that suited Nadal, the master of defensive tennis, more than it did him.

When he served to love in the third game, it looked a strategy well worth pursuing. By the time a gust of wind swept through the court towards the end of the first set, though, he was beginning to realise that Nadal was committed to hunting down every last quarter-chance, to stretching both of them to breaking point. And it was Soderling who cracked.

“It’s really difficult to stay focused for two weeks playing [so] many matches,” Soderling said later. “I had a few break chances (eight, in fact). I didn’t take them, so then, of course, it was tough. I don’t think it would have changed anything.”

That is not only a remarkable statement but at odds with what we witnessed, after dropping a tight first set (when he was still, notionally, in the match), had Soderling taken advantage of any of the three break points he had in the second game of the second set, there was everything to play for. Instead he blew the simplest of backhands for deuce and the moment was gone.

The crowd sensed they were being deprived of a fight and grew restless. The applause now was reflexive, acknowledgment of the inevitable rather than celebration of greatness as Nadal hit one wondrous winner after another.

“Rafa! Rafa!” they screamed. The Christians v Lions had nothing on this slaughter. Nadal took the set 6-2, then eased in the home stretch. Not for the first time he had turned a tennis match into a bullfight.

The sun came out, perhaps to mark Nadal’s miracle shot of the match, a twisting backwards half-volley. Soderling got another break point and wasted it. Nadal was now playing in some parallel universe, his mistakes as surprising as his winners.

Soderling was going down as surely as the rain that briefly spat on Paris. The match was reduced to a blizzard of supplementary numbers, no longer a contest in any way.

The only player ever to have beaten Nadal at Roland Garros could not do it when it mattered. Nadal did not just beat him, he reduced him to a hitting partner. It was at once a cruel sight and an awesome one. Resignation painted Soderling’s doleful features, those Donald Pleasance eyes more melancholy than ever.

"If somebody says I am better than Roger," Nadal said after wiping the court with Lleyton Hewitt in the first week, "I think this person don't know nothing about tennis." It seems safe to assume the list of people who don't know nothing about tennis grows longer by the day.  - Guardian Service