Can anyone stop Rafael Nadal from winning ANOTHER French Open title?

In short... no. Thanks for reading.
This is to those people who lambaste me for doing non-sporty blogs. Not mentioning names (Denny boi), we know who you are!

"Why you never serious?" asked the great philosophiser that is Jens.
Ok. In all seriousness, Jens, there are players who can beat Rafa in the upcoming Roland Garros, but I honestly do not believe anyone will.
The man has lost twice there since 2005. TWICE! Robin Soderling in 2009 and Novak Djokovic in 2015. Every single other time he has played there, since the age of 18, he has won the thing!

The key to beating Rafa is to be strong off both wings, move well, take the ball earlier than he does, get lots of free points on serve and you have to have very high fitness levels.
The best example of this, bar the serve, would be a Novak Djokovic or a Nikolay Davydenko, that match-fixing Russian, bless him.

But, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction, or at least attempt it, and provide a list of the players who could, at least, trouble the 10-time French Open champion.

1) Novak Djokovic: 
Now I know what you are thinking, if you follow tennis, that is.
The Serb is having, by his lofty standards, a wretched season. Only recently has he improved from a 50% win record to post 10 wins and 7 losses in 2018. Only once has he made it to a quarter final this year, and that was last week in Rome.
But he is one of the chosen... two... who have tamed El Matador and he has a winning record against him - precious few can say that.
He ran him pretty close in the Italian capital last week and he looks as if he is coming into form. Being ranked outside the top 20, he could face Rafa in round 3. I still feel it is too soon for the former world number one and I am not sure he can go toe-to-toe with the Spaniard - but then again, who can?

2) Dominic Thiem:
The Austrian hasn't had his best clay court season but he did beat Nadal in Madrid, albeit the conditions are quicker and less favourable to the veteran there than they are at Roland Garros.
He moves well, is a huge hitter and his best surface is clay. He has beaten Rafa 3 times before on the dirt and he has the ability to outhit the Spaniard, but whether he can do it in a best of five set much is questionable.
This could be another quarter final clash between the two, but I believe Thiem will try to go for too much, as he did when he was thrashed by Rafa in the French Open semi-final last year, and he will get picked off.

3) Alexander Zverev:
Despite having a 0-5 record against Nadal, the 21-year-old Sascha has all the weapons to tame the bull, but he still is yet to do it. In their first ever meeting, when Zverev was 19, he missed a sitter of a match point and Rafa came back and won.
At last year's Australian Open, Zverev took him to five sets, with his serve, power and bruising backhand doing all sorts of damage on the day - but it wasn't enough.
The German is yet to progress to a quarter final of a slam and as the number two seed he will only get another crack of the whip if he makes it to the final, something I do not think he will do. His form, however, is superb. He is now number one in the ATP race and had been on a 13-match winning streak on clay, before losing in the Rome final to Nadal. The world number 3 did have a 3-1 lead in the final set but Rafa, shock!, stormed back to win.
Zverev, for me, is a player that needs to get one win over Rafa and then I believe he could achieve many more. He needs to hug that baseline though or he has no chance.

4) Hyeon Chung:
Not many may choose this guy, but I believe he has the tools to trouble Nadal, if not at Roland Garros, then in the years to come.
Chung hasn't kicked on as much as I would have liked after his heroics in Australia, but he has been unlucky with injuries too.
His court coverage is fantastic, his fitness is very impressive, he is so strong in rallies, he can take the ball early and he can beat big players on the biggest stages (Novak in straights Down Under).
This guy could be a bad match up for Rafa, but again, Chung has been injured of late, so that doesn't bode well.

5) Fabio Fognini:
When the Italian is firing on all cylinders, he can be a match for anyone. He has beaten Nadal on clay and most of the time he runs him close in defeat. Fabio came from two sets down to conquer Rafa in the US open three years ago. However, a lot has changed since then and Fognini has known nothing but defeat against the Spaniard from then on. I do not think he can pull his genius off for three sets, but he has a puncher's chance.

(6) Nicolas Jarry: 
I am pretty sure nobody will be talking about this guy but if you have seen him play on the clay this year, you will see he has a huge game off of the forehand and backhand. His serve is a weapon and he doesn't move like a tree. The unseeded 22-year-old could be another Soderling or a Lukas Rosol, but probably not. Watch out for this giant in the future though.

Footnote: Andy Murray is injured, Stan Wawrinka is on the comeback trail and it is unlikely that Babolat will use faster tennis balls like they did in 2011, when Rafa almost lost in round one to Big John Isner.

Here is my prediction. Rafa will win his 11th French Open but he will drop a set! Considering last year the soon-to-be 32-year-old did not, that is a big claim...

Unintended consequences...

Evidence. Independent investigations. Congressional approval. Parliamentary votes.
All these things have been circumvented, bypassed or ignored when the U.S, the UK and France bombed Syria earlier today.
UN weapons investigators were heading to Damascus this weekend to carry out a review into whether or not the chemical weapon attack was carried about by Bashar al-Assad.
But let's forget about that, trust the Western leaders on their 'word' and their 'confidence' that they had evidence to say Assad was behind the attack, that killed at least 70 people earlier this week. This is awful, let's get that clear. However, this whole episode fills me with dread. Russia has already said that 'there will be consequences' for these airstrikes.
What do we want to do? Start WW3? What happens if a Russian plane gets shot down by a U.S one, or vice versa?
Don't get me wrong though, Assad is a tyrant and a despot. But the Chilcott Report detailed how horrific mistakes were made in Iraq and Libya was also an unmitigated disaster.
So when Assad's army was on the verge of wiping out ISIS in Douma, with the help of Russia, why would he do something like this? Because he is a tyrant and a despot? Perhaps, but it makes no strategic sense to then do this, because, just like last year's attack on Syria, much of the world condemns Assad and threatens the country with airstrikes.
US defence secretary Jim Mattis told reporters in February that there is 'no evidence' of the use of the chemical weapon Sarin, from last April's chemical weapons attack.
But here we go again, gallivanting about into a war that could have horrific, unintended consequences.
The CIA and the FBI, during Barack Obama's presidency, backed rebel groups in the Middle East, THAT FOUGHT AGAINST EACH OTHER. If that doesn't show you how myopic the US's foreign policy position is on this, then I am not sure what will. But it appears that Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron are no different.
In 2016, a report said that ISIS had used chemical weapons at least 52 times in Syria and Iraq and that the rebels had their own chemical weapons facility in Eastern Ghouta.
Was this a false flag? I don't know. Should we do an independent investigation to get evidence? YES!
People in Syria are dying and a lot more may die because of these airstrikes. This will lead to more refugees too.
Never fear though, the so-called 'Resistance' in America, which is supposed to oppose Donald Trump are... SAYING HE SHOULD GO FURTHER TO STOP PUTIN.
Minority leader of the U.S House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, tweeted to "Ultimately hold Putin accountable for the bloodshed he has enabled."
I thought the left were the anti-war party. Well this shows the Democrats are not.
But well said Jeremy Corbyn for not sounding the war drums like the rest, that darn communist and Russian appeaser...(sarcasm).
This is a war crime, it is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is unjust and I fear it could get worse.
The U.S apparently took in 11 Syrian refugees in 2018, so I am not sure this is being done for humanitarian reasons for the Syrian people.

Ed Byrne: 'Sachsgate' prank phone call negatively changed the face of TV comedy

Mock the Week star Ed Byrne says the infamous ‘Sachsgate’ prank phone call by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand negatively changed the face of TV comedy.

In 2008, Ross was a guest on Brand’s BBC Radio 2 show, where the pair left a voicemail on beloved Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs’ answerphone, making lewd and sexual remarks about his granddaughter.

Although Brand resigned and Ross was suspended without pay, the two protagonists’ careers remain largely unscathed.

That, according to Byrne, cannot be said for the BBC, who, along with TV comedy producers, have restricted what comedians can and cannot say ever since the scandal.                    
           

 “Around the whole Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand incident, comedy had to conform to a lot of different forms of compliance, including Mock the Week,” he said. 

“There was a much stricter view on things and since then everything was looked at more carefully across TV in general. It did have a limiting effect on what you could and could not say.

“It had a negative impact on TV comedy as there was increased control in terms of watching what you had to say.”

TV host James Corden was recently lambasted for his churlish jokes over the Harvey Weinstein scandal, bringing up the age old question, ‘Where is the line for comedians?’

“The joke has to be really good when covering controversial topics. An audience can sometimes forgive you if you do something politically questionable if it is utterly hilarious,” said Byrne, who is currently on the road with his Spoiler Alert tour.

“If it is just a hack joke that it wasn’t worth bringing up the subject, then people are less inclined to give it a pass.

“Frankie Boyle is a perfect example of someone who can make a joke and you can hate yourself for laughing at it. But because it is so funny but you don’t care that it is wrong.

“Everyone has their own line personally. For many it is not the subject material, it is how you handle it.

“In theory nothing should be off the table, no subject should not be talked about but it is how sensitively you go about it and whether or not you take humour from something without taking the piss out of it.

“Making a joke that concerns a subject is not the same thing as mocking that subject.

“Paedophilia would be a classic example. It is the most horrible, shocking and stomach churning topic that there is. But to say there aren’t a bunch of jokes that people are doing concerning it would be a lie.

“It also depends on the comedian and the audience. Generally however, that is not a furrow that I plough, I am not someone that is considered a shocking comic.”