Rafael Nadal is back at Roland Garros, and he's winning—at least in practice sets, as he downed Sebastian Korda in one practice set they played.
The Spaniard has had an interesting comeback season on clay so far. A lot of eyeballs have closely followed Nadal all this time, and history is repeating itself in Paris. In recent weeks, we've heard stories of him absolutely tearing players to pieces in practice sets.
He bested Andrey Rublev in Barcelona, looked great in Rome, and now bested Korda in Paris. However, his play in real matches hasn't looked as sharp. He looked good at the Madrid Open, but still lost relatively early.
His Italian Open campaign ended in a brutal loss to Hubert Hurkacz, who showed no mercy and certainly provided perspective to the 22-time major winner as to where he stands with his level.
Nadal is certainly expected to produce his best possible tennis at the moment in the French capital. No player has ever been as dominant as Nadal in Paris, and if he was going to produce a magical throwback performance anywhere, it would be there.
His practice set against Korda was very decent, as he showed his signature skills on clay, winning the set 6-3. Whether that translates to actual matches remains to be seen, especially since he's going to be playing the best-of-five sets matches, which is quite a bit more tennis than his body is used to.
In recent weeks, he's never really bought into his own hype, always employing a reserved tone marred with doubt. Nobody ultimately knows what will happen, and that includes Nadal, but answers should come within a week, by which point he will have played at least one match.
That match should give the Spaniard a good idea of his physical and level-wise condition.
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