Rafael Nadal won his ninth French Open title, and a record fifth in succession, by defeating Novak Djokovic 3-6 7-5 6-2 6-4 in three hours and 31 minutes on Sunday. His command at Roland Garros is overwhelming – 66 wins and just one defeat in the last 10 years – making him the first player ever to win a major title nine times. Nadal now ranks as the number one player in the world. More importantly, with a total of 14 Grand Slam titles he trails only Roger Federer for the most men’s Grand Slam championships in history.

After the victory Nadal said, “In matches like this every moment is crucial. Playing against Novak is always a big challenge, I lost against him the last four times. It was a very hard moment, so today tennis gives me back what happened in Australia,”

It is the third year in a row that Nadal made the finals against Djokovic, crushing his dream of winning the one Grand Slam title he’s missing. Upon winning, Nadal commented, “I feel sorry for him today, he deserves to win this tournament. I’m sure he will in the future.””

Djokovic started the match quickly by taking the first game and went back-and-forth with Nadal, until winning back-to-back games for a 5-3 lead on the first break of the day. He survived Nadal’s two break points in the next game and took the first set 6-3.

In the second set, Nadal had another chance at a break point and initially it looked as though he gained a 4-2 lead but the umpire ruled the ball out. Nadal held strong and turned the game into another break point, this time converting it for the 4-2 set lead. But that two-game lead proved elusive to hold onto, as Djokovic brought the set to a 5-5 tie before Nadal took the next two games to even the match at one set apiece.

With the match nearly two hours and counting, Nadal started to play his best tennis of the day, opening with a 3-0 lead in the third set and extending his streak of points won to five straight. Though he dropped two games after that, Nadal emerged with a 6-2 set victory and 2-1 match lead.

Nadal managed to split the first four games of the fourth set before taking a 4-2 lead and injuring his back during the seventh game. Though he labored with the injury for a little bit and dropped another game, Nadal settled in and took the last two points to win the final set 6-4 and the championship.

“It’s incredible to win this tournament for the ninth time,” Djokovic said. “It’s a very emotional day for me, for my team. I gave my maximum. I played with all my strength and force and capabilities but Rafa was the better player on the court. Congratulations to him. I want to say thank you to my team.This trophy is not for us this year, but we will try again and again and again. And I hope to win Roland Garros one day.”