Former ATP star hopes Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz form ‘explosive and brutal’ combination

Ewan West 31 Dec 2023 4:15 PM

Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal

Alex Corretja has expressed his hope that Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz join forces to form an “explosive and brutal” Spanish doubles combination at the 2024 Olympics.

The tennis analyst and former world No 2 believes the pairing would be “very unusual” but feels it would be successful because they are both “winners.”

The 2024 Olympic Games will be held in Paris, with the tennis event to be played at Stade Roland Garros – the venue for the French Open.

The two Spanish stars could potentially team up in the men’s doubles event to form a fascinating cross-generational team. Nadal is a two-time Olympic gold medallist, having won the singles in Beijing in 2008 and the doubles in Rio in 2016 alongside Marc Lopez.

In an interview with AS in September, Nadal expressed that he has the appetite to team up with his young compatriot in his final Olympic Games appearance.

“To play doubles with him at the 2024 Olympics? I would like to do so,” the 22-time Grand Slam champion declared.

“It would be a good motivation, another incentive, for me to be able to close my Olympic career playing with Carlos, with everything he is achieving, with the young people and with the great future he has ahead of him.”

Alcaraz also gave his backing to the idea earlier this year, saying: “It would be a dream. Not only to win a medal at singles or doubles, but just to live the experience of playing doubles with your idol would be a memory that I would keep with special affection.”

Corretja, who represented Spain at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, discussed the mouth-watering prospect of Spain’s two big ATP stars playing together.

“Both the facts that the Olympics being played at Roland Garros and that Rafa will enter the games thinking it is his last shot to add a medal for the country makes a important moment,” the two-time French Open runner-up told Eurosport.

“If you add to the mix, that he could play with [Carlos] Alcaraz in doubles, that becomes explosive, that would be something attractive, that would really be a very unusual combination, but I think it would work out very well because the two are winners.

“Although they do not know each other so well because they have coincided little in the circuit, I am convinced that the chemistry would be brutal.”

Nadal was beaten in the opening round of the doubles event at the 2024 Brisbane International in his first match after almost a year out of action.

The 37-year-old and Marc Lopez fell 4-6, 4-6 to the Australian duo of Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson at the ATP 250 event on Sunday.

The former world No 1 had not played since suffering a hip injury in his second round loss to Mackenzie McDonald at the 2023 Australian Open in January.

Nadal will face former world No 3 and US Open winner Dominic Thiem in the first round of the singles draw in Brisbane.