Rafael Nadal surfed a wave of crowd support to stay on track for a third Olympic gold medal on Tuesday, teaming up with Carlos Alcaraz to reach the men's doubles quarter-finals at Roland Garros.
The Spanish dream team, dubbed "Nadalcaraz", edged out Dutch pair Tallon Griekspoor and Wesley Koolhof in their second-round clash in cloying heat, winning 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 10-2.
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The packed crowd on Court Suzanne Lenglen made no secret of their support for the Spanish team, regularly chanting: "Let's go Rafa, let's go".
The red-shirted Nadal, 38, was dumped out of the singles by Novak Djokovic on Monday but emerged alongside his 21-year-old teammate to loud applause from the expectant crowd 24 hours later.
The Spaniards regularly put their opponents under pressure on serve in the opening set and finally broke in the seventh game when Alcaraz ripped a cross-court forehand winner.
French Open and Wimbledon champion Alcaraz served out as the Spaniards wrapped up the set 6-4 in 54 minutes.
The left-handed Nadal was wearing strapping on his right thigh but appeared unhindered, producing some athletic tennis at the net alongside his trademark punishing forehands.
Both teams missed chances to break towards the end of a tight second set and the Dutch dominated the resulting tie-break to level the contest.
But the pendulum swung dramatically in the match tie-break as Nadal and Alcaraz surged into a 5-0 lead, running out 10-2 winners after two hours and 22 minutes.
The Spanish pair will face US fourth seeds Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram in the last eight.
The injury-hit Nadal, a 14-time French Open singles champion is playing just his seventh tournament of 2024 in a season in which his ranking has plummeted to 161.
He is aiming to capture a third Olympic title after his 2008 singles win and his doubles triumph in 2016.
AFP