Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz start the Paris Olympics with a doubles victory – NBC New York

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 crew, eliminating Argentina’s Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 7-6 (4), 6-4 on the Paris Olympics on Saturday evening.

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 is going to 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 positioning of the annual French Open, the place he claimed a file 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 through 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 in opposition to Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics. If Nadal wins that, he would face longtime rival Novak Djokovic within the second spherical.

“Enjoying him is sort of a ultimate, actually, for me in any match, significantly right here, figuring out what he has achieved, what he’s finished, for our sport, significantly right here in Roland Garros. His file speaks for itself,” Djokovic stated after successful his first-rounder earlier Saturday. “I sit up for it. If we get to face one another, it’s going to be presumably the final time we get to face one another on an enormous stage. I’m certain that individuals will take pleasure in 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 in opposition to their sixth-seeded opponents, to make certain, 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 Courtroom Philippe Chatrier was any indication, the cheers for Nadal will probably be as loud as could 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 belly muscle downside, and misplaced within the first spherical of this 12 months’s French Open to eventual runner-up Alexander Zverev, Nadal seemed simply nice 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 super volleying capability, 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 ceaselessly slapped palms with Alcaraz between factors — whether or not received or misplaced — and sometimes patted his much-younger accomplice 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 accomplice and yelled, “Vamos!”

Arduous court docket tennis footwear are designed to scale back abrasion, whereas clay court docket footwear are designed to maintain off mud.