The two old kings are looking for each other on the horizon. Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic will face each other in the second round of the singles draw at the Paris Games if both overcome their first obstacles. The Balearic player will face the Hungarian Marton Fucsovics, number 83 in the world, and the Serbian against the Australian Matthew Ebden. The draw for the Olympic draw was not kind to the Mallorcan, who also sees Alexander Zverev in his line-up, who he would meet in a hypothetical semi-final and who defeated him in the first round of Roland Garros this year. Precisely, this Thursday both would have coincided in a double training session, but Nadal decided to suspend it due to muscular discomfort in his right thigh. Later, his coach, Carlos Moyà, confirmed in statements collected by Radio Nacional de España (RNE) that his player had suffered a “setback” the day before and that it was preferable “for him to rest and not train to recover”. Regarding the possibility that the accident could jeopardize his participation, he replied to the radio station: “I cannot guarantee that Nadal will play.”
Carlos Alcaraz, second seed behind Djokovic after the withdrawal of number one, Italian Jannik Sinner, due to illness, will make his debut at the Games against the Lebanese Hady Habib, world number 275. And the Spanish pair Nadal-Alcaraz will take to the court against the Argentines Andrés Molteni and Máximo González, sixth seeds. These first matches, both in singles and doubles, will be played on Saturday and Sunday, pending the final schedule.
The buildings housing the Spanish and Serbian athletes are opposite each other in the Villa by the River Seine, but Djokovic has decided not to stay there in order to seek more privacy. The Serbian, world number two, has also given up the doubles draw to focus on one of his last great objectives, gold at the Games at 37 years of age. Nole won bronze in Beijing 2008 after losing in the semi-finals against Nadal and was on the verge of a podium finish with a fourth place in both London 2012 (defeat in the semi-finals against Murray and for third place against Del Potro) and in Tokyo 2020 (in the penultimate round he fell to Zverev and was defeated by Pablo Carreño for bronze).
On his road to redemption, Djokovic is catching sight of his eternal enemy, the man he has been crossing paths with for 18 years. The balance smiles on the Balkan in the personal clashes (29-30) in a legendary series that began at Roland Garros in 2006 and which saw its last episode until now also on the Parisian soil that now hosts these Games. Nadal beat the Serbian in the quarterfinals of the French great in 2022 in four sets and since then they have not seen each other on the court. At 38 years old, Olympic gold in Beijing 2008 in singles and in Rio 2016 in doubles, the Spaniard is dragging a body punished by injuries, especially in the last two years. “I hope to be ready to play well,” explained the Spaniard on Thursday. “That it is at Roland Garros is a detail for me. I have felt very comfortable throughout my life playing here and it is the most important place in my career. But I don’t experience this as Roland Garros but as the Games,” added the Balearic player.
Nadal is back in Paris after losing the final of the Bastad tournament, the first he has played in 777 days, against Portuguese Nuno Borges last Sunday. This Wednesday he trained for the first time with Carlos Alcaraz, a pair of great symbolic value for what they represent for Spanish tennis in the past, present and future. Doubles will be a new adventure for the 22-time Grand Slam champion (14 in Paris) while he tries to progress in the singles draw. There Djokovic may await him in another chapter of one of the greatest duels in history.
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