Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz — Spain’s old-and-new pairing of tennis superstars — received the primary match they’ve ever performed collectively as a doubles staff, eliminating Argentina’s Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 7-6 (4), 6-4 on the Paris Olympics on Saturday night time.
The 38-year-old Nadal has not made clear whether or not the Summer season Video games would be the final occasion of his storied profession, though there’s been loads of hypothesis it will likely be, given all of his latest damage points — he wore white tape wrapped round his proper thigh Saturday — and his connection to Roland Garros. That’s the clay-court facility getting used for these Olympics and the location of the annual French Open, the place he claimed a document 14 of his 22 Grand Slam titles.
Nadal’s participation within the 2024 Olympics really started an evening earlier, when he was a shock torch bearer throughout the opening ceremony.
Nadal, who received Olympic golds in singles in 2008 and in doubles in 2016, is scheduled to play within the first spherical of singles on Sunday towards Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics. If Nadal wins that, he would face longtime rival Novak Djokovic within the second spherical.
“Taking part in him is sort of a last, actually, for me in any match, significantly right here, understanding what he has achieved, what he’s achieved, for our sport, significantly right here in Roland Garros. His document speaks for itself,” Djokovic stated after successful his first-rounder earlier Saturday. “I look ahead to it. If we get to face one another, it’s going to be presumably the final time we get to face one another on a giant stage. I’m positive that folks will get pleasure from it. I’m trying ahead to it.”
Neither Nadal nor Alcaraz, a 21-year-old coming off singles championships on the French Open in June and at Wimbledon two weeks in the past, performs a lot doubles. There have been hiccups Saturday towards their sixth-seeded opponents, to make sure, together with a 3-0 deficit within the second set, however the Spanish duo’s expertise prevailed.
If this outing in entrance of a packed and raucous crowd at Court docket Philippe Chatrier was any indication, the cheers for Nadal will likely be as loud as might be for so long as he stays within the Olympics brackets.
Whereas he has performed solely sparingly over the previous two seasons due to hip surgical procedure and an stomach muscle drawback, and misplaced within the first spherical of this 12 months’s French Open to eventual runner-up Alexander Zverev, Nadal appeared simply tremendous Saturday. Then once more, doubles requires far much less motion and stamina than singles, in fact.
Nonetheless, Nadal’s motion appeared OK, and he confirmed off his great volleying skill, together with one back-to-the-net, over-the-shoulder, no-look winner within the first set. After the purpose, he wheeled and punched the air. Followers celebrated wildly.
Nadal steadily slapped palms with Alcaraz between factors — whether or not received or misplaced — and infrequently patted his much-younger associate on the shoulder throughout pauses within the motion.
When the match ended with a volley off Alcaraz’s racket, Nadal raised each fists. Alcaraz turned to his new associate and yelled, “Vamos!”
Onerous court docket tennis footwear are designed to scale back abrasion, whereas clay court docket footwear are designed to maintain off mud.