History man Nadal sweeps to 12th French Open and 18th Grand Slam title
Paris, June 9: Rafael Nadal swept to an historic 12th Roland Garros title and 18th Grand Slam crown on Sunday with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 victory over Austria's Dominic Thiem.
The 33-year-old Spaniard becomes the first player, man or woman, to win the same Slam 12 times after seeing off a brave challenge from a weary Thiem in a repeat of the 2018 final.
Nadal is now just two behind Roger Federer's all-time record of 20 majors and three ahead of Novak Djokovic who was knocked out by Thiem in the semi-finals.
The world number two also took his Paris record to an astonishing 93 wins and just two losses having previously won the title in 2005-2008, 2010-2014, 2017 and 2018.
Sunday's triumph confirmed the 'Big Three' stranglehold on the Grand Slams having shared the last 10 between them.
It also gave Nadal an 82nd career title and 950th match win.
In a 53-minute first set of brutal hitting and raw physicality, it was Thiem who broke first for a 3-2 lead.
But the 25-year-old's joy was short-lived as Nadal retrieved the break in the sixth game before racing away with the next three games to pocket the opener.
Thiem, who had beaten his opponent four times on clay in his career, failed to claim a single point off Nadal's first five service games of the second set.
However, the dogged Austrian pushed and pushed, forced Nadal into three rushed groundstrokes and, from nowhere, broke to take the second set.
It was the first set he had managed to take off Nadal at Roland Garros after three previous defeats.
Nadal was riled by the insult.
He swept the first 10 points of the third set, carving out a double break for 3-0 before sweeping to a third break for the set.
Thiem, bidding to become just Austria's second Grand Slam champion after Thomas Muster won in Paris in 1995, had played four successive days to reach Sunday's final and the toll was slowly telling.
He wasted break points in the first and third games of the fourth set and Nadal pounced to stretch to 3-0.
That was soon 5-1 and the relentless barrage continued with Nadal taking the title on a second match point when Thiem fired a return long.
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Nagpur explosives factory blast: Death toll rises to 19
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Nagpur (PTI): The death toll in the Nagpur explosives company blast has gone up to 19 after one more person succumbed, police said on Monday.
Twenty-three other injured workers were undergoing treatment in hospitals here, a police official said.
The toll in the blast at the SBL Energy Limited factory on Sunday has risen to 19 with the death of one more worker, he said.
A high-level meeting chaired by Nagpur Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule was underway at the divisional commissionerate here to deliberate and take stock of the incident that took place on Sunday.
Senior officials from various departments, local legislators and other leaders were present in the meeting.
The police have arrested nine directors of SBL Energy Limited, where the blast took place on Sunday morning, officials said.
The Kalmeshwar police here have registered a case against 21 directors and shareholders of the company under Section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, they said.
The explosion occurred at the detonator packing unit of SBL Energy Limited, a mining and industrial explosives manufacturer, at Raulgaon in Katol tehsil of Nagpur district.
The bodies were charred beyond recognition, and samples of the family members were being taken for DNA testing to ascertain the identities of the deceased, police said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered a thorough investigation into the cause of the explosion.
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