As Rafael Nadal continued his assault on tennis’ history books this event, he made sure to cross off two significant milestones with his latest French Open victory. First, his 14^th Grand Slam singles titles ties Pete Sampras for second most in the Open era and puts him three behind Federer’s mark.  For those interested, Federer won his 14^th and 15^th slams in his age 27/28 year and Nadal at 28 will get two more chances to do the same.

However, I think the more interesting mark is his ninth title at Roland Garros tying Martina Navratilova’s Open era record of nine Grand Slam singles titles at Wimbledon for the most wins at any slam (male or female). With all due respect to Margaret Court’s insane record at the Australian Open (post and pre-Open era), these two players have defined excellence at their respective events and it…