Olympic Games—Paris, France
Nadal Wins Olympic Opener; Sets up 60th Meeting Against Djokovic
Rafael Nadal set up a much-anticipated second-round encounter with top seed Novak Djokovic at the Olympic Games on Sunday, defeating Marton Fucsovics 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
Needing two hours and 31 minutes to advance, Nadal hit 26 winners, slammed one ace and broke his Hungarian opponent on four occasions.
Up next, Nadal will take on his greatest career rival Novak Djokovic. Playing on 59 previous occasions, Djokovic currently owns a slight 30-29 head-to-head lead.
The pair last met at the French Open quarterfinals in 2022 (the same venue as the Olympics) and Nadal won in four sets.
Djokovic is the top seed at the event with the absence of Jannik Sinner due to illness. Nadal is ranked No. 161 in the world.
The Spaniard recently made the finals of the Bastad, Sweden event and won his first round doubles match with Carlos Alcaraz on Saturday.
Other men’s winners on the day included No. 6 seed Casper Ruud, No. 13 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime, Jack Draper, Tomas Martin Etcheverry, Daniel Evans, Benjamin Hassan, Corentin Moutet, Mariano Navone, Sebastian Ofner and Jan-Lennard Struff.
Wimbledon Winner Krejcikova Survives First-Round Test
Recent Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova survived an opening round scare on Sunday at the Olympic Games, defeating Sara Sorribes Tormo from Spain 4-6, 6-0, 7-6(2).
Needing two hours and 53 minutes to advance, Krejcikova hit 34 forehand winners, six backhand winners and broke serve on six occasions.
Krejcikova will next face Xinyu Wang, who defeated Tamara Korpatsch 6-2, 6-1.
Other women to advance on Sunday included former US Open winner Bianca Andresscu, Maria Sakkari, Donna Vekic, Elina Svitolina, Danielle Collins, Wang Xiy and Diana Shnaider.
As always, check back for daily updates on TennisConnected for all your previews and reviews from this week on Tour.
Stream all the action live this week from the Olympic Tennis event right here.
