Mixed weekend for Irish sport stars but King Rafa reigns supreme once again in France

                                                    From golf to cricket and football to boxing, the Irish had their fingers in a lot of sporting pies. Not the kind of pies that this armchair fan is most fond of, but in Ohio and in Wales, in Lord's, Skopje and Cardiff this Irish sports follower had plenty to chew over last weekend. However, the sports headline of the weekend must be Rafael Nadal’s tenth Grand Slam and sixth French Open win at the tender age of only 25 over his great rival Roger Federer at Rolland Garros on Sunday last. Whatever may be said by those with 20-20 hindsight vision, his victory was by no means a foregone conclusion. He had been beaten twice by Novak Djovkovic in two clay court finals leading up to the French, in Madrid and Rome and his shaky 3-2 win over big serving John Isner in the first round only gave credence  to those who questioned whether his veneer of invincibility on the clay was beginning to lose its polish. He got better with each game however and when he comfortably beat both Robin Soderling and Andy Murray 3-0 in the quarter and semi finals respectively it looked as though rumours of the King’s demise had been greatly exaggerated. In this blogger’s opinion though, the fact that it was Federer that he faced in the final and not this years form player Djokovic, was a huge boost for the Spaniard. While Federer still oozes class, only dropping one set on the way to the final, it appears as though Nadal has the mental edge over the Swiss man. They have met each other on eight occasions in grand slam finals with Nadal winning six to Federer’s two. Indeed those two are both at Wimbledon and were back in 2006 and 2007. Since then, the Spaniard has beaten Federer in the finals of the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the French Open twice. Djokovic won this year's Australian and last years US Opens and if he is able to beat Nadal in two consecutive finals on the Spaniard's favourite surface then the Serb could be the real threat to the world number one in the coming months.

                                            In the women’s section China’s Li Na defeated defending champion Francesca Shiavone of Italy. Both Li Na and Rafael Nadal picked up cheques for €1.2 million. While I appreciate that viewing figures worldwide for the women’s final may have been greater than the men’s this year (because of China’s huge population), this is the exception and certainly not the rule. Women’s tennis is nowhere near as gripping as it used to be, when Navratilova and Graf were in their pomp or when the Williams sisters bothered to compete in all of the Slams and not just Wimbledon. However, even if it was as entertaining as the men’s, the fact is that women simply do far less work than the men. On the way to her maiden Grand Slam Li Na played 16 sets and spent 727 minutes on the court. Compare that to Nadal’s 24 sets and 1258 minutes of game time and it’s clear that Nadal is clocking in for over eight hours more yet going home with the same pay. If women want equality in terms of remuneration well then I think it’s time that we went back to ‘equal pay for equal play.’