Haren
Top seed Novak Djokovic outplayed long-time rival Rafael Nadal in their 60th all-time meeting to progress into the third round of the Paris Olympics men’s singles on Monday.
Djokovic, the 24-time Grand Slam champion, obliterated Nadal from the start, asserting complete dominance over serve and return to find the early breaks. While the Serb was on the verge of completing his first bagel over Nadal, the Spaniard marginally held fort before conceding the first set 6-1 in only 39 minutes.
Meeting for the first time since the 2022 French Open at the same Court Philippe-Chatrier, Djokovic was cruising through the second set with the early breaks before Nadal snapped back with his first break in the sixth game. Nadal reduced a four-game deficit with successive breaks over Djokovic to level the set. However, the world no. 2 Djokovic who was occasionally boeed by the French crowd, firmed up his defence and returns to clinch a decisive break before sealing the straight-sets 6-1, 6-4 win on serve.
Entering the Paris Games under an injury cloud, the 38-year-old Nadal had little time for a turnaround after his three-set first-round win over Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics last evening.
Nadal and Djokovic had previously only met once at the Olympic-level, during the 2008 Beijing Games where the Spaniard emerged the winner in the semi-finals and went onto win the singles gold. While Nadal will remain in Paris to continue the men’s doubles competition alongside Carlos Alcaraz, the 37-year-old Djokovic will take on the winner of Germany’s Dominic Koepfer and Italian Matteo Arnaldi’s in the third round.
