Rafael Nadal has put his heart and soul into the 2024 Olympics, with the best possible preparations. He registered to compete in the men's singles event, but also understood that, even when competing on his favorite clay court, his chances of winning a gold medal were not many.
Therefore, the Spanish legend registered for the men's doubles event, pairing with Carlos Alcaraz. It is understood that Rafa wants Alcaraz's youth to take on an important part of his ambition.
As expected, Nadal soon bid farewell to the singles event when he lost to Novak Djokovic in round 2. That was a match that clearly showed that the 38-year-old tennis player's physical strength was greatly affected, although he still had quality shots.
In doubles, the "Nadalcaraz" pair got off to a good start with a victory over the number 6 seed pair - Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni. In round 2, facing a pair of unseeded Dutch players, Tallon Griekspoor and Wesley Koolhof, Nadal and Alcaraz had a hard time resolving the match after a series of super tie-breaks. In the third round, "Nadalcaraz" lost in defeat to the American pair Austin Krajicek - Rajeev Ram, also the number 4 seed.
Of course there is regret after defeat, but Nadal's career has included two Olympic gold medals - one in singles in 2008 and one in doubles in 2016.
Failure at Roland Garros this summer also caused many reviews to appear with the comment "the end of a cycle", when Nadal was 38 years old. Naturally, Rafa will think about his future after the 2024 Olympics, with retirement one of the possibilities.
Or maybe the 22-time Grand Slam winner will play a few more events until the end of this year. However, after seeing Nadal compete in doubles, this could be a possibility for the rest of his career.
There are advantages for Nadal when playing doubles: it doesn't take as much physical strength as playing singles, and the matches usually don't last long - maximum 3 sets, including Grand Slam tournaments.
In addition, on the current men's doubles rankings, at the top there are quite a few players who are Nadal's age such as Spanish compatriot Marcel Granollers, 38 years old, Horacio Zeballos (Argentina) 39 years old, or Ram - who just eliminated Nadal, is 40 years old. Even Rohan Bopanna (India) is 44 years old.
Of course, Nadal does not specialize in doubles to get ranking points, but he has played quite a lot of doubles. Nadal's glorious singles career sometimes makes people forget that Nadal started playing doubles in 2003 (at the US Open), played with David Sanchez and was eliminated in round 1. The following year, he and Tommy Robredo reached the semi-finals. .
Nadal also played doubles at the Australian Open (2004, 20025), Wimbledon (2005) but did not have good results.
At the Olympics, before his 2016 gold medal with Marc Lopez, Nadal played doubles at the 2004 and 2008 events.
In addition, in the Masters 1000 tournaments, Nadal played doubles at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, Italian Open, Canadian Open, Cincinnati, Shanghai, Paris Master, in which he won Indian Wells twice (2010, 2012) and won Monte-Carlo once (2008).
Nadal's career doubles result is 46-30 (60% win rate). Those are the parameters for him to think about switching to doubles for the rest of his career. The problem is which partner will you find suitable for doubles?
