In the upcoming round, Nadal will face Australian Alex de Minaur, who defeated him in the Barcelona Open’s second round last week. With a straightforward straight-set victory against American youngster Darwin Blanch, Rafael Nadal started his final Madrid Open match.
It just took 63 minutes for Spain’s five-time champion—who has stated he intends to retire after the 2024 season—to win 6-1 6-0.
This week, the 37-year-old declared that he will only participate in the French Open the following month if he believes he is “capable enough to compete”. Fearing he would not be able to play on the professional circuit again, the 22-time major winner was making his comeback to the Barcelona Open after a three-month hiatus.
On May 26, the French Open, which Rafael Nadal has won a record 14 times, will get underway. Nadal told the reporters, “Playing here has always been an absolute joy and the backing is hard to describe in words.”
I just relished the opportunity to visit that location once more, and my triumph allows me to return there in two days. It’s sentimental. I’m enjoying it but also concentrating on what I need to be and seeing how far I can push my physical performance since I’m a steady yet passionate person.
The third-seeded American, Coco Gauff, defeated Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands 6-0 6-0 in the women’s draw. However, after losing to Russian 15th seed Liudmila Samsonova 6-2 4-6 7-5, four-time major champion Naomi Osaka is out.
The 22-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal was defeated by Alex de Minaur on Thursday in the second round of the Barcelona Open 2024 ATP 500 tennis event. In one hour and fifty-two minutes, De Minaur—the fourth seed and world No. 11 in the men’s singles rankings—overcame his Spanish opponent 7-5, 6-1. Minaur defeated Rafael Nadal in straight sets, becoming the first Australian to do so on clay.
Twelve-time champion Rafael Nadal declared after the match, “Alex is a great player.” He was in better form than I was for the tennis match today. Since the season started, he has truly been playing at a very high level.
“I believe he has advanced significantly in his tennis abilities. I simply want to say how delighted I am for him and how well he performed today. In their five matches, this was the Australian tennis player’s second victory over Nadal. The other occurred in a hard court match in the United Cup the previous year. “I probably wasn’t too excited to face Rafa when the draw was announced, but I changed my perspective and saw it as a tremendous opportunity—one that comes along just once in a lifetime. That I was able to win makes me very delighted,” De Minaur remarked.
Nadal played in the Barcelona Open for the first time in 2024 and his first since January, when he advanced to the quarterfinals of an ATP 250 event in Brisbane.
Before falling to De Minaur in the opening round of the Barcelona Open, the legendary Spanish tennis player had defeated Flavio Cobolli of Italy 6-2, 6-3. After defeating Nadal, De Minaur will play Arthur Fils of France in the third round.
Jordan Thompson, De Minaur’s Australian colleague and current world No. 32, defeated Jaume Munar, another Spaniard, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 to go to the third round. Thompson’s next opponent is Norway’s third-seeded Casper Ruud.
O An annual professional tennis event held in Madrid, Spain, is known as the Madrid Open (Spanish: Masters de Madrid; originally known as the Madrid Masters, and presently known as the Mutua Madrid Open for commercial reasons). It takes place in late April and early May on the clay courts at the Caja Mágica in Manzanares Park, San Fermín. The competition is a WTA 1000 event on the WTA Tour and an ATP Masters 1000 event on the ATP Tour. Though in 2012 the competition was held on blue clay courts, the typical site is red clay.
From 2009 to 2021, the event was owned by Ion Şiriac, a millionaire businessman from Romania and former professional player on the ATP circuit. In 2019, Ğiriac was interviewed by Digi Sport, which stated that the event enriches the city of Madrid annually to the tune of more than €107 million. Şiriac sold the competition to IMG, a company located in New York, in 2021 for about €390 million.
