6-3, 7-6(2), 6-3 to hand Spain its first ever gold medal in Tennis.
The championship victory was Nadal’s eighth title of the year, and after being second-ranked in the world for more than three years, he will be anointed World No. 1 on August 18, just ahead of his bid for a sixth Grand Slam title at the US Open. Nadal has lost just once in his past 39 matches.
“Not in my best dreams can I have imagined this,” Nadal said after being crowned the Olympic champion.
Gonzalez improved on his bronze Singles medal from Athens, and together with his Athens Doubles gold and his silver medal in Beijing, becomes the 10th man to win three or more Olympic Tennis medals.
The Chilean, who had a huge part to play in the high-quality encounter, saved three match points when trailing 2-5 in the third set, the last of which Nadal had set up by successfully challenging a forehand the linesman had called out. Nadal served out the match and a tense final game by taking his fourth match point when Gonzalez returned a crosscourt forehand into the net.
The new Olympic Men’s Singles champion collapsed on court as the crowd rose to their feet to applaud both players for an enthralling finale to the Olympic Tennis event.
The nail-biting second set was a feast of sublime Tennis from both players. Gonzalez’s tactical backhand slice, which had been unsuccessful in the first set, was put to good use in softening Nadal’s explosive forehand as the Chilean went on the attack to match Nadal for winners.
Neither player faced break point until the twelfth game, when Gonzalez, leading 6-5, lost two break and set points on the Nadal serve with consecutive forehand errors, which the Spaniard took advantage of with yet another searing forehand down the line to set up a tiebreak. From then, the set was for Nadal’s taking as he closed out a two-set lead with the loss of just two points in the tiebreaker.
Nadal got into the final by defeating No. 3 seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia in a high-tension semifinal. But Djokovic stormed through a 76-minute victory over James Blake of the United States on Saturday, August 17 to take the bronze medal.
“For me, this bronze shines like gold because I think I’ve played pretty good Tennis the entire tournament,” said Djokovic, who handed Serbia its second medal of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Blake, meanwhile, will forever be known as the man who ended Roger Federer’s dreams of Olympic glory in the Men’s Singles in Beijing. The World No. 1, who had worn his heart on his sleeve since his Olympic campaign began at the start of the season, fell to Blake for the first time in nine career meetings with the American. Blake cited his victory as one of the biggest of his career.
As seems to be customary in Olympic Tennis, the Men’s Singles competition bubbled with all the surprise and drama of an entire season. Djokovic’s teammate Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia caused the first upset of the tournament when he defeated No. 5 seed David Ferrer of Spain in their first round match, which turned out to be a bad day for Spain as Nicolas Almagro and Tommy Robredo also fell by the wayside to lower-ranked players.
Fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia joined Ferrer the next day at the hands of Paul-Henri Mathieu of France, one of four French players to safely reach the third round, and Tipsarevic’s great start to the tournament ended with a nasty sprained right ankle in his second round match against Olivier Rochus of Belgium.
Australian hopes of a good run in Beijing were dealt a blow when Lleyton Hewitt was drawn to meet Nadal in the second round.
Russia and France were the only NOCs to have more than one player advance past the first round. Nineteen NOCs started with multiple player representation in the Men’s Singles.
Nine of the top 10 men in the world competed in the Men’s Singles, which culminated in the Olympic Tennis event’s highest-ranked gold medalist.
