With French Open 2012 down to the very last day of action and a mouth watering clash for the men’s finals between World number 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia and World number 2 Rafael Nadal of Spain on the cards, Indian Sports News thought to roll back the year’s to bring to you what we think are the top five finals that have taken place at the Roland Garros.

5) Steffi Graf vs Monica Seles (1992): Two of the most dominant women players of their time, Graf and Seles met for the second time in the French Open finals first one being 1990 which Seles won. Graf had vengeance on her mind and Seles wanted to win it for the third consecutive times. Both had contrasting performances in the previous way with Seles had to really battle it out to make it to her third straight French Open finals while Graf had a much easy outing.

Coming down to the big day, both players played their skin out to better each other who were at that time were arch rivals. None of them were in the mood to relent and in the final set Seles at 5-3, it looked like she would cruise home easily but Graf showed immense resiliency to take the decider into the tie breaker. Both the players were engaged in a neck to neck battle, but eventually Seles won her third French Open title after she won the match 6-2, 3-6, 10-8 in a match that lasted for two hours and 43 minutes.

4) Gaston Gaudio vs Guillermo Coria (2004): It was an all Argentine finals at a contrasting line up. World number 44 Gaudio up against World number three Coria. It looked like Coria would run away with the match easily and at a point leading at 6-0, 6-3, 4-3, but it did not happen that way. Gaudio came back from behind and won 0-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, 8-6.

3) Ivan Lendl vs John McEnroe: John McEnroe was going through a phase of his life and was riding high on his 39-0 winning streak and Lendl looked like an easy meat for him as he till then had never won any major tournament. And as according to everybody’s anticipation, McEnroe clinched the first two sets and was looking strong for the title. But Lendl held on to his nerves and came back from two set deficit to win the match and his first Grand Slam title 3-6, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5, 7-5.

2) Bjorn Borg vs Manuel Orantes (1974): Bjorn a player quite unknown before, met Orantes in 1975 finals and it looked like anybody’s match as none of them had won any of the major tournament till date. Both players with odds evenly placed set out in quest of their first major and with two sets down it looked Borg was staring at a defeat. But he showed immense resiliency and came back from behind to win the match 2–6, 6–7, 6–0, 6–1, 6–1. That win was something special at after that Bjorn won for five more times and now currently tied with Rafael winning as many as titles as him.

1) Rafael Nadal vs Mariano Puerta (2005): Rafael Nadal who had never won any major Grand Slam title had made a name for himself on the ATP World Tour tournaments but a Grand Slam eluded him. In 2005, he dominated the clay court season and his dominance was seen at the French Open too. He defeated Roger Federer in the semis before beating Mariana Puerta 6-7, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 to win his first Grand Slam and first of his sixth titles here at the French Open. Since then he has been the most dominant player here and has a record of 51-1 here.

By Indian Sports News Network