We were happy and didn't know it: Nadal and the shiver that runs down tennis' backside

A shiver runs down the spine of tennis: Roland Garros without Rafael Nadal ? It’s perfectly possible. Absent from Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Madrid, he only has Rome and Paris left in the clay-court season. And there’s a serious chance he won’t play those tournaments either. To give you an idea of the tennis-tectonic plate movement involved in his absence from the French Open, the last time Nadal wanted to play there and was prevented by injury was in 2004.

It was 19 years ago. That time he was 17, today he is 36. READ MORE