The Spanish dream is over as Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz were beaten in the quarter-finals of the doubles tournament at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
At 38 and a limited amount of playing time on the ATP Tour in recent months, Nadal didn't have a big shot at winning a medal for his country in singles at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, even if the tournament is played at Roland Garros, the ground where he won 14 majors trophies.
That proved to be correct in the second round of the singles tournament when his rival Novak Djokovic bested him in two sets. However, the 22-time major winner formed a strong pairing in doubles with his compatriot Alcaraz, who already has four majors to his name.
The two handled the first-round match against the sixth-seeded Argentinian team of Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni about as well as they could have hoped for, and they also won in their second-round match against Tallon Griekspoor and Wesley Koolhof, even though they needed three sets to beat the Dutch team.
In the quarter-finals, they faced the fourth-seeded team from the United States of Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram, and it was clear that the Americans have played a lot together, and they have shown their experience in this match.
The Spaniards were broken already in the first game of the match, and given how good serve the American players have, they faced a difficult task of breaking back. They couldn't do that, and on top of that, Krajicek and Ram broke one more time, and that was enough to win the opening set 6-2.
It seemed that both teams settled into their game more in the second set, as both held their serves very comfortably until 3-3, losing only a few points here and there.
That changed in the next game, when Alcaraz and Nadal felt the pressure and got broken, and once again faced a really difficult task of breaking the doubles specialists standing on the other side of the net.
In the following game, they got to 30-all and relatively close to breaking back, but they couldn't do it. On their serve, they had to fend of their opponents' charge, as the game got to deuce, but the crowd favorites held.
When the Americans were serving for the match, Alcaraz and Nadal had three break points, and the crowd in Paris was really pushing them to mount an unthinkable comeback, but in the end, the doubles experience of their opponents was just too much to overcome.
Krajicek and Ram saved all three break points, and ultimately, they were able to win the match 6-2, 6-4, eliminating Nadal in his possibly last Olympic Games, and Alcaraz on his debut.
0 Comments