Rafa Nadal will compete again for the first time since January in the ATP 500 Conde de Godó tournament in Barcelona, in which he will face the Italian Flavio Cobolli in the first round, after the draw held this Saturday. The 37-year-old Spaniard, with 22 Grand Slam titles under his belt and 12-time winner in Barcelona, suffered a thigh injury in the Brisbane tournament last January and since then has had to successively withdraw from several tournaments, such as the Australian Open, Doha, Indian Wells, Miami or more recently the Monte Carlo Masters 1000.
For his part, Carlos Alcaraz, who also resigned from the Monegasque tournament last week due to a forearm injury, also intends to participate in the Barcelona tournament. Today he travels to Barcelona and these days he will test himself to see how his arm responds. Until Wednesday, the day on which he must make his debut at the Godó facing the winner of the first round duel between Zhizhen Zhang and Luca Van Assche, the Murcian will not decide whether to compete in Barcelona or, on the contrary, resign and focus on the next tournament, the Madrid Masters 1000.
If Alcaraz finally plays at Godó and overcomes the first two rounds, he could face Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals. The Greek arrives with great confidence on the surface since today he will play the final in Monte Carlo against Casper Ruud (the Norwegian defeated Djokovic yesterday and the Greek defeated Sinner), so it could pose big problems for Carlitos' interests. Alcaraz would meet Rafa Nadal in the semifinals, with a potential final against Casper Ruud or Andrey Rublev.
David Ferrer, tournament director, assumed yesterday that Nadal and Alcaraz are ready to compete this week in Barcelona
Alcaraz exercised very gently yesterday on the municipal tennis courts that have just been inaugurated in El Palmar. There, in addition, the cameras of the production team that are following him around the world moved to record a documentary that next year will be released exclusively on Netflix.
Nadal's painting
Returning to Nadal, his big goal for 2024 is Roland Garros, the Parisian tournament in which he built his legend with 14 titles, before eventually participating in the Paris Olympic Games. And Barcelona is presented to the Mallorcan as a first step towards those two objectives. During the drawing the painting. Nadal was paired in the first round with the Italian Flavio Cobolli, current number 63.
If he goes to the second round, Nadal could then face the Australian Álex de Minaur and then Alejandro Davidovich. «I hope Nadal and Alcaraz meet in the semifinal. Rafa is competing at a high level and Carlos is fully recovered. I want to dream about this semifinal. It will be a special Godó, because we have Rafa with us after a few years in which he has not been able to compete,” said David Ferrer, director of Godó, yesterday. He assumed that both are there to compete.
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