Tennis Mailbag: Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz Capture 2024 Olympics Buzz

Jon Wertheim answers your questions on the Paris Games, the state of doubles and the politics of retirement.

Nadal and Alcaraz have advanced to the men's doubles quarterfinals in Paris. / Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

Hey everyone … I hope you’re enjoying the Olympics.

• Here’s the latest episode of Served with Andy Roddick. Because it is 2024, and dignity can be a sparse commodity, I am obliged to tell you to smash the like button and subscribe, rate and review. I am also duty-bound to invite you to our live show in Cincinnati on Aug. 8, the Friday before the tournament.

• A few of you asked about the Cape Town College of Magic piece that aired on 60 Minutes the other night. Here’s a clip.

• A reminder that Jay Caspian Kang’s 30 for 30 documentary on Michael Chang, American Son, premieres this week on ESPN. Here’s the trailer.

Onward …

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Jon, 

As a longtime Rafael Nadal fan, all I can say at this point is this is painful. Please make it stop. 

Respectfully, 

Dominic Ciafardini, Westchester, NY

•Yeah … about that. This is like a hooking (lefty) passing shot. There is a needle to thread here. 

It is a Hague-violating international crime to tell athletes it’s time to quit. Years are added to your sentence for adding the phrase “tarnishing your legacy.” This isn’t presidential politics where age impacts performance, that affects millions. In an individual sport in particular, if Venus Williams or Tiger Woods or Nadal or Stan Wawrinka or whoever wants to play and find fulfillment until they are AARP-eligible, so be it. Live your best life; live your longest career.

That doesn’t mean it’s not jarring to watch the decline, nor that we should ignore what we are seeing. In his prime, Nadal was—I credit Bob Bryan for first using this descriptive—“a beast.” There was, at once, this ferocity and nobility to his tennis. His record spoke/screamed volumes. Especially at Roland Garros. So, watching him return to that venue and struggle to win points on serve at times was … unnerving.

In May, he wasn’t quite there against Alexander Zverev. But he was playing his first match in months. He was nearly 38. He was playing a top-flight opponent a decade his junior.

Monday’s outing against Novak Djokovic was difficult to watch. (Fortunately for him, at least in the U.S., it was, literally, difficult to watch.) His shots didn’t penetrate. His serve was a nonfactor. His movement was compromised. Though he and Djokovic are not even a year apart in age, they looked like they were from different generations. (At times, it looked like they were playing a different version of the same sport.)

Nadal is a legend. Literally. As in: He has inspired a body of historic stories. He leaves the stage when he wants to. He calls the shots. That doesn’t preclude us from acknowledging, regrettably, how far the present looks from the past.

Djokovic defeated Nadal handily in the second round of the Olympics. / Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

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If someone hasn’t already brought this up, should [Carlos] Alcaraz win gold, we should call it the Channel Triple Crown. 

In order to differentiate Olympic tennis, perhaps there could be a team format. Figure skating has both a team and individual events and it works well. Borrow from World Team Tennis if needed; shorten the sets, and make national representation truly mean something. Perhaps it would encourage the top names to play mixed as well!

Jay O.

• Well played. Channel Triple Crown, it is. What if Alcaraz wins the U.S. Open? The Summer Triple Crown? He will have three on the trot, on three surfaces. Neither Roger Federer nor Djokovic achieved this feat. Nadal did it in 2010.

I sense Olympic tennis is getting beaten up a bit this week. I don’t quite get it. Sure, it would be preferable if doubles players were thrown in as singles replacements. (I have a lot of respect for my old Amsterdam neighbor, Robin Haase; but I did a double-take seeing him, ranked 1199, in the singles draw!) But what choice is there? You can’t have lucky losers at the Olympics.

And sure, some top players took passes. But not that many. (And I suspect there’s some FOMO from those who were eligible and passed.) More on this below.

And an overall team event doesn’t really work for, say, Iga Swiatek or Djokovic. Should they be denied when there are no Polish men and Serbian women, respectively, in the field?

Like many of you, I wish it were prioritized by broadcast decision-makers. But I’m all-in on Olympic tennis. And suspect most fans are as well.

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If [Djokovic] had beaten Nadal 6–1 6–0 he would have been roundly criticized as an ass.

J.B, Portland

• Yes, probably from the social media mafia. But I think most true/sane/sentient fans understand that A) few losing opponents want charity or mercy and B) especially with dangerous opponents—and 22-time major winners at their venue of choice certainly meet this description—you cannot start handing out games.

To be clear: Nadal won those additional games. Djokovic gave no charity. But if he had closed it out 6–1, 6–0, he would simply have been doing his job. And doing it well. 

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Hey Jon!

Two, tangentially related questions for you. 1) Do you think (or have you heard murmurings) that Swiatek’s dominance on clay is one of the reasons for so many high-profile DNPs at the Olympics? There’s a subtle difference to me between Ben Shelton preparing for hardcourt, rightly feeling that clay doesn’t suit him best, and someone like [Aryna] Sabalenka—one of the best players in the world, who maybe feels like she should get ready for the Open instead of a playing a tournament where could AT BEST get the silver medal. 

2) Speaking of medals, at what point do you think most players would value an Olympic victory over a slam? I assume the vast majority of players would much rather bag a major than get gold at the Olympics. I feel that MOST players would rather say I made the finals of a major than get silver. But how might they compare making a slam semifinal to winning the bronze?

-n from California

• I think the women’s Olympic field is quite strong and quite logical—as an athlete from Belarus, Sabalenka’s appearance was always going to be problematic. This is informed speculation but as an athlete who not only struggles with her health, but was born in Moscow—and whose Wimbledon title in 2022 was curdled a bit by questions of her nationality—Elena Rybakina’s late withdrawal was not a surprise. C) Even if Swiatek were going in as the overwhelming favorite, you’d think the Olympics are singularly well-suited for additional entries. Unlike regular events, you can leave with a silver or bronze medal!

Talking to players about this, it’s clear that the overwhelming majority would value a singles major above—if slightly—an Olympic gold. But I would submit that a doubles gold in the Games would mean more to most players than a major title.

• Speaking of doubles, here’s an omnibus … There was a bit of chatter last month about doubles, its future and what many thought was dismissive treatment on a Served podcast episode.

I’m not sure I want to enter the fray. In fact, I know I don’t. But here’s the deal: Tennis should be able to accommodate doubles. Matches are entertaining. They feature so many virtues—net play, angles, scrambling, teamwork—that fans love and, purportedly, miss from so many singles matches. More crassly: Tennis—like any healthy industry—should be adding, not shedding jobs. And, at a minimum, doubles matches are necessary to fill sessions. We have these prolonged ATP Masters series events which span nearly two weeks. Especially on those slow second-week days, you need acts on stage.

At the same time, there’s this reality: Doubles isn’t punching through. Matches don’t rate or draw fans. Singles stars seldom play, despite various inducements. Someone made the point that at Wimbledon, the No.1 doubles player at the time—44-year-old Rohan Bopanna—lost early. And this upset went wholly unacknowledged.

There’s a chicken-and-egg problem. The doubles players complain that the ATP has not properly invested in marketing the product. The ATP—factions of it, anyway—respond that the market has spoken and there is no sense investing in the product. Instead, we get “innovations” like mic-ing up players.

Usually, we say something’s gotta give. But this has been the liminal state of doubles for decades. And I suspect this will continue. The ATP won’t euthanize doubles. But it won’t make an additional investment. It will not alter the scheduling and scoring to encourage more singles to enter. And so it goes …

Andy Murray and Daniel Evans are still alive, advancing to the third round of the men's doubles draw at the Paris Games. / Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

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Hi Jon,

I watched your interview with Elena Rybakina before her Wimbledon semifinal match. I thought your Red Bull question was a good one. She (and all tennis players) get asked the same questions at every turn. It must be nice to get an unusual question now and then. If I were her, at some point in the conversation, I would have said:

I have a question for you. I read a tennis columnist's predictions before the tournament started. He predicted that the final four would be [Swiatek], Coco [Gauff], Sabalenka and [Lucia] Bronzetti. It turns out that he got all four wrong.  Any comment?

If she had asked you (and I'm sure she's far too nice to do that), what would you have said?

Here's [another] question for your mailbag:

The pros talk about playing practice sets with each other. In real sets, they never speak before or during the match and rarely acknowledge each other unless the other player hits a tremendous shot. What are practice sets like?

Salvage63

• A) “Elena, I am leaden with shame. I picked three top-four players and the one I neglected—you!—went furthest. And Bronzetti was silly. Next time I will swig a Red Bull before projecting.”

B) It’s funny, I always thought of practice sets as fairly pro forma. There wasn’t much predictive value. And, if anything, they often throw off the scent. Daniil Medvedev smoked Djokovic in a practice set! Then, when they play for real, the outcome is the precise opposite.

But then I heard Gauff at Wimbledon talking about players taking practice seriously, to the extent that some players (not Jelena Ostapenko, she volunteered!) even call a tight line. So now, I will reconsider practice sets and watch them more closely.

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If Vijay [Amritraj] can get into the Hall of Fame, then Vitas [Gerulaitis] should be in no questions asked.

@jt_spurs

• Sure. A few of you asked how Amritraj made the Hall of Fame when he never advanced beyond the quarters of a major and his highest ranking was 18. The short answer: this was more about his contributions to the sport, opening the portals to India (population: 1.4 billion) than his record. Note his eloquent induction speech here. If Gerulaitis were a ballot under similar circumstances—his overall contributions deserve this measure of recognition—I suspect it would be received enthusiastically.

ENJOY THE FINAL ROUNDS FROM PARIS, EVERYONE!