Nadal breaks free and embraces another final in Paris

Although it is difficult for Diego Schwartzman to give up, exemplary the Argentine always in the resistance, refuting with game, pride and excellent arguments until the outcome, Rafael Nadal closes the way (6-3, 6-3 and 7-6 (0 ), at 3h 09m) and enshrines another victory, which is not just any: it is the 99th in Paris, already on the verge of that round and so implausible figure, the one that happily places him in the final on Sunday and therefore a single step out of Roger Federer's 20 greats.

Because yes, beyond the rain, cold, autumn and all the vicissitudes of this rare, rare, rare edition of Roland Garros, there is an unparalleled reward at stake and Nadal has it very close, Novak Djokovic or Stefanos Tsitsipas through .

• "Nadal is going to have to be fine in the head"

• Schwartzman: from Nadal to Nadal, 20 dream days

Nadal came with the lesson more than learned from Rome.

For Schwartzman, a tennis player who enjoys as the pace increases and transitions accelerate, it is convenient to cut his wings as soon as possible.

The Argentine tried to impose his deep game quickly so that the Balearic did not gain track, but this time the Mallorcan did not hesitate.

He took a step ahead of the one he could and was taking over the free zone, stepping on the baseline to strike and breaking the rival's cadence with high and slowed balls, from parabola to parabola, with the little effect that the Wilson's stagnant ball this year.

That was where the victory passed: to get Schwartzman out of his comfort space and prevent him from hitting at mid-height.

And the first game was a declaration of intent on both of them.

It lasted for 14 minutes and the Buenos Aires native, brave where they exist, claimed the reins but found Nadal's immediate reply: this is not the Foro Italico, it is not at night like on that Roman Saturday a month ago, and in Paris looks out a pleasant autumn sun at the start of the afternoon.

'I rule here'.

It does not matter that

calls the harangue: “

”, a statue to be demolished on its cover.

The Mallorcan deprived him of the first two

options

and counterattacked with everything to prevent the debate from entering the least appropriate dynamic.

Break already the load.

Nadal and his cookbook.

It so happens that Schwartman is not one of those who takes a step back and insisted with the proposal.

He is the Argentine of those who if they fall, he does it with the usual suit, being himself.

With everything.

But this time the bill was tremendous in the first set.

He replied and obtained a momentary profit, returning the

, but then he suffered all the electric shock of the Spanish, fine and inspired as in no other previous day.

Nadal knows how to hit when and where else should, and found the liver of Peque with a precise and forceful tennis.

If he had already made a significant jump with the final burst against Yannik Sinner in the quarterfinals, against Schwartzman it multiplied.

Everything was a little more recognizable.

The natural light, the time, the atmosphere —practically the thousand allowed in the stands, nothing from the nocturnal wasteland of the previous round… -, and the

Mallorcan's

, nourished with last minute incorporations;

also his crossed backhand, essential to open the court and that until now he had only dared to teach with a dropper, an excellent sign of confidence;

the service had nothing to do with that of the evening in Rome, intoned from the beginning, and the right found a parallel gorge to put the signature to the point on several occasions.

Roland Garros was a little more Roland Garros and Nadal, therefore, it was already more Nadal, the one who exercises firm in the French spring.

He controlled the situation from start to finish, marking the distances in a timely manner and preventing Schwartzman from finding emotional stimuli.

The Argentine earned a good share of applause with an extraordinary

from the right, on the run and almost glued to the wall, but he never conveyed the feeling of a real revolution.

sThe Argentine will tell his grandchildren that one day he beat Nadal at the Foro Italico, but Paris is another story.

The tournament has been setting times for him and the Spanish has been responding according to the need.

Upon takeoff, he climbed a rung before Sinner, the first major obstacle, and scared off

.

With the plot of the first set well resolved, and physically growing exponentially, it comfortably resolved the second (

to 2-1) and gritted its teeth in the third because it was demanded by a meritorious adversary, thus dispelling the unknowns that could have been generated by the little resistance in the previous seasons of the tournament.

Nadal is as he should be at this point in this strange Roland Garros.

Without a single scratch on his body and without giving up any sleeve in the direction of the epilogue (as in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2017), he decisively leads another final, the 13th at the Bois de Boulogne, the 28th in a Grand Slam.

The statue on that cover, then, is still standing.

Shimmeringly standing.