Rafael Nadal pushed his 32-year-old body to the edge and the rules to breaking point, albeit unwittingly, to win his 11th French Open title on a warm, humid Sunday afternoon, an achievement that reduced him to tears of joy.

His lower left arm cramped on him about half an hour from the end at just the moment his opponent, Dominic Thiem, surrendered to the lassitude that paralysed his otherwise stout resistance and, in the still sunny autumn of his days, the Spaniard cruised further away from all his rivals on his favourite surface with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 win that took him two hours and 42 minutes on his beloved Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Whether he is now fit and willing to play Queen’s Club before Wimbledon remains doubtful. He has cancelled the warm-up twice now, after the rigours of the clay season. He sounded non-commital.

It was questionable, meanwhile, that, according to a strict reading of the game’s rules, he should have been allowed repeated treatment on his serving arm without penalty after it went numb as he paused during his serve at 2-1 in the third set. He had the trainer back on after Thiem held for 2-3, and again just before he served out the match.

Nadal claimed later that wrapping on his arm, which he says he used to absorb sweat, constricted blood flow. “The finger was very tight, I couldn’t move the finger,” he said.

“It was not a normal cramping – probably because ... the bandage creates pressure ... probably don’t allow to have the right circulation. For me [it] was scary. I was not able to move the hand, the finger. I went straight to my chair ... I didn’t know even what I did. I was trying to cut my tape. After a couple of minutes, I still had the same feeling. After that, things went better and better. When I take the bandage [off], the things improved.”

There is a case to be made that the rule on cramping – drafted in 2010 in response to claims that it is a result of poor conditioning – should be reviewed. Had the umpire chosen to, he could have docked Nadal a point. And, while it might have interrupted the flow of the game, it surely would not have materially affected the result, which elevates him alongside the Australian Margaret Court as the owner of 11 grand slam titles at the same tournament – hers being in the Australian Open. And nobody could question Nadal’s physical fitness.

He also moves to 17 majors, just three short of Roger Federer who, after resting from clay again, returns at Wimbledon next month in pursuit of his ninth title there. Nadal, who has won at the All England Club twice, has not got past the fourth round since losing against Novak Djokovic in the 2011 final, with a string of tough losses against lowly ranked players.

Paris, though, remain’s Nadal’s red‑brick fortress and it is entirely feasible that he will get to the end of his career untroubled on the clay where he has won 86 times and lost only twice. When he returns the stadium will look completely different; he, in all likelihood, will not. Demolition of the main stand begins on Monday, followed by a frantic rebuild to be ready for 2019, then the umbrella roof in 2020. Nobody is betting against Nadal carrying his dominance into the new era.

There probably were only a handful of players who were going to threaten him here this year: Djokovic, whose shock defeat by the world No 83 Marco Cecchinato in the quarter‑finals left him devastated; the fast-rising world No 3 Alexander Zverev, defeated by Thiem in the finals; and the Austrian himself, who arrived in Paris for the second year in a row as the only player to have beaten Nadal on clay in the lead-up to the championships, in Madrid last month.

It was a tense and absorbing match, rather than a great one. Ken Rosewall, who won the first Open final here 50 years ago by beating his fellow Australian Rod Laver and who presented the Coupe des Mousquetaires to Nadal, was candid when he said Thiem was “disappointing”, because, after overcoming setbacks in the first two sets, he was drained to the point of resignation at the end – against an opponent six years older than him who clearly was struggling with cramp.

Thiem’s normally reliable and powerful serve did not function efficiently for most of the first two sets. He finished with five double faults (along with 42 unforced errors), numbers that did nothing for his mood, as he ranted in frustration at key moments.

The first set was as curiously disjointed as was Nadal’s against Diego Schwartzman in the semi-finals, and Thiem’s second against the Italian Matto Berrettini earlier on, although there were passages of excellence to blot out a shopping list of errors, from framed forehands to wayward serves – including one double-fault by Nadal which bounced in front of the net, much to the amusement of the crowd.

Nadal recovered from that embarrassment and the pressure mounted on Thiem’s first serve. He dumped a forehand to hand Nadal three set points. Another wild forehand long sealed it.

Thiem’s serve continued to be his blessing and a curse, letting him down when he needed it most, and Nadal was able to steadily impose himself on the match. When he held through deuce for 4-1, weathering a fierce Thiem fightback, he will have sensed the title was his to lose. He served out to lead by two sets after an hour and 52 minutes, and Thiem’s mission impossible turned into a public ordeal, albeit one he was privileged to endure.

The close was an anti-climax, the drama settling on the frantic efforts by the trainer around Nadal to keep him fit to finish.

Thiem raised a laugh later when he talked about having watched Nadal at home on TV as an 11-year-old schoolboy, when the Spanish youngster won his first French Open in 2005. “I enjoyed more watching him on the couch,” he smiled. “But I’m confident that this was not my last grand slam final.”

Nadal concluded later: “In my career I achieved more than I could dream, but at the same time I went through tough moments. You cannot fight against age. I am not worried about the future. Tennis is a very important part of my life, without a doubt, but it is not everything. I have a lot of other things that make me happy. Today is a very special day. I am going to keep playing until my body resists. From the first time since I came here to today is a love story.”

Rafael Nadal v Dominic Thiem: French Open 2018 men's final – live! Read more

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rafael Nadal plays a forehand return to Austria’s Dominic Thiem. Photograph: Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dominic Thiem’s serve let him down during the match. Photograph: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images