PARIS — Burying the King of Clay required a cold heart of stone.

On the same hallowed red clay of Roland-Garros where Rafael Nadal became the champagne toast of the tennis world, Novak Djokovic kicked dirt in a fading legend’s face, then punched the sky with his fists in victory.

It was a brutal, merciless beating, at times almost painful to watch, as Djokovic roasted Nadal 6-1, 6-4 on a steamy Monday afternoon at the Summer Olympics.

After the 60th, and quite possibly the last, mano a mano showdown in one of the greatest rivalries any sport has ever known, a perfunctory hug at the net between Djokovic and Nadal revealed the complex nature of their relationship.

They have fought too often, for far too long, with the stakes much too great, to be truly close friends.

So maybe I got what I deserved when asking Djokovic if 18 years of intense competition on courts from Australia to England and the United States to France has fostered a brotherhood with Nadal.

After taking a moment to ponder, the affable 37-year-old Serbian superstar replied with a wry smile but a most definite no.

“There’s no brotherhood,” insisted Djokovic, looking me square in the eye.

Are they forever intertwined in tennis history? No doubt.

Do they both possess the grace to profess genuine mutual respect? Absolutely.

But forget the poetry sports romantics strain to spin into saccharine mythology.

Here’s the real nature of this longstanding feud on a tennis court, where the winner takes all and there’s no place for the loser to hide:

“It’s tough to be close, honestly,” said Djokovic, speaking his truth to me.

Tennis might be a genteel sport, but there’s no love lost between Djokovic and Nadal.

Their head-to-head competition, which now stands 31-29 in Djokovic’s favor, has gone on longer than the battles quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning fought on the football field. Their endless little tennis war, littered with the Spaniard’s aggravating habit of blasting his psyche music too loudly in the locker room and the Serbian’s proclivity for smashing his racket in anger, has sometimes rivaled the intensity as any glare Muhammad Ali ever gave Joe Frazier.

Emotions grow callous, because vulnerability can be preyed upon as weakness. Djokovic suggested to me he has never shown Nadal his heart, for fear it might get eaten.

“As greatest rivals, you don’t really want to give insights to your life or the way you feel and stuff, because maybe that can expose you,” said Djokovic, with startling honesty. “I think that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t connect so closely. And I don’t think at that level you can really connect so close to anybody.”

Maybe when they become gray old men, Djokovic and Nadal will learn to be friends, in the way Magic Johnson and Larry Bird buried the hatchet by the time they were ready to rack the basketballs for the last time and go home.

“Who knows when the careers end for both of us?” said Djokovic, allowing a shred of optimism for a future when match point isn’t on the line.

“It’s a long life, hopefully for both of us. And we’re both family people. Hopefully, we can address a different side of the relationship, and reflect on the things we lived together, the special moments, in a different way.”

But the Olympics were neither the time nor place to get nostalgic for the way they were, or revel in the glory of 46 Grand Slam singles titles they have claimed between them.

Without mercy, Djokovic hastened his bitter rival toward retirement.

Battling a chronically creaky hip and feeling the toil of time on his 38-year-old body, the Nadal that took the court for a last dance that Djokovic declared “had the Olympics buzzing” was a shell of the legend that won the French Open 14 times from 2005-22.

Everytime the crowd chanted “Ra-fa! Ra-fa” it sounded like a prayer to bring back the king Nadal no longer can be on clay or any other surface.

With backhand strokes as fierce as a jackhammer, Djokovic ruthlessly pounded Nadal into submission, winning 10 of the first 11 first games with cruel efficiency.

The match was fully 75 minutes old before Nadal joined it, finally breaking Djokovic’s serve and briefly rallying, only to quickly fade, eliminated on match point by an ace that kicked up a puff of red dirt.

When he walks off the court that defined his career, does Nadal ever consider it could be for the final time as a singles player?

“Every day. You want me to retire every day, guys,” Nadal said, chuckling at the never-ending whispers that suggest it’s quitting time.

“I cannot live every single day with the feeling that it’s going to be, or not going to be, my last match. I come here, I do my best. When I decide to stop playing or I decide to keep going, I will let you know. I don’t know.”

He’ll always have Paris, which has adopted Nadal as its favorite son.

It’s a love so real that it makes it tough to walk away.

“That’s part of life,” Nadal said. “Everything has a beginning, everything has an end. I will miss playing tennis.”

The King of Clay is dead.

Long live Rafa.