{"id":39617,"date":"2025-04-21T23:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T23:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39617\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T23:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T23:56:08","slug":"what-rafael-nadal-said-carlos-alcaraz-needed-to-improve-after-playing-him-for-the-first-time-at-the-madrid-open-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39617\/","title":{"rendered":"What Rafael Nadal said Carlos Alcaraz needed to improve after playing him for the first time at the Madrid Open in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Carlos Alcaraz has been compared to Rafael Nadal since he first arrived on the ATP Tour as a teenager.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alcaraz won his first ATP match<\/a> when he was just 16-years-old, getting many people talking about the exciting Spanish teenager.<\/p>\n

The Murcian has since lived up to those expectations, with Alcaraz winning four major titles<\/a> already at 21-years-old.<\/p>\n

However, when he played Nadal<\/a> at the Madrid Open<\/a> just three years ago, Alcaraz<\/a> still had many improvements that he needed to make to become the player he is today.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno\/Getty ImagesWhat Rafael Nadal said Carlos Alcaraz needed to improve in 2021<\/p>\n

After wildcard Alcaraz won his first ever match at the Madrid Open in 2021, he set up a highly anticipated second round meeting with top seed Nadal.<\/p>\n

Despite this appearing to be an exciting prospect on paper, it was a very one-sided affair that Nadal won, 6-1 6-2, in just an hour and 15 minutes. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When attending his post-match press conference<\/a>, Nadal was asked many questions about Alcaraz and what he thought his potential was after playing him for the first time.<\/p>\n

Nadal was very complimentary towards his compatriot, but highlighted the serve as something that needed work.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, when somebody at his age is able to do the things that he\u2019s doing is because you have something special, no?\u201d said Nadal. \u201cAnd at the same time, he\u2019s humble enough to keep working. He\u2019s passionate about the game. So I really believe that he gonna be able to burn cycles very soon, very fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really believe that he\u2019s a complete player. I mean, he\u2019s brave, he\u2019s able to go to the net very often. Great forehand, great backhand.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course needs to improve a little bit the serve, but he\u2019s just 18 today, so he has plenty of time. As I said, he\u2019s humble enough and he\u2019s a hard worker, so I don\u2019t have a doubt that he will do it, no? His movement is great.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, when you make a salad and you are putting ingredients inside the salad, he has, I mean, plenty of ingredients to become a great player. That\u2019s the main thing. Then of course nothing is easy. You\u2019re gonna have big opponents in front. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, nothing is easy in this life. Be one of the best players in the world and fight for the most important titles is something very difficult, but I really believe that he\u2019s one of the guys that he can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Oscar Gonzalez\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Alcaraz won only 41% of his points on first serve on that day, and also hit three costly double faults.<\/p>\n

While it can still be a vulnerability of his at times, Alcaraz has worked a lot on his serve<\/a> since that defeat to Nadal.<\/p>\n

When did Carlos Alcaraz beat Rafael Nadal for the first time?<\/p>\n

That was one of three meetings between Alcaraz and Nadal before the latter retired last year.<\/p>\n

Nadal beat Alcaraz once again in the 2022 Indian Wells<\/a> semi-finals, but just two months later the young Spanish star got his revenge.<\/p>\n

In their Madrid Open rematch just one year later, Alcaraz beat Nadal in three sets to show a real sign of the progress that he had made.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When speaking in his post-match press conference<\/a>, Nadal complimented Alcaraz and suggested that he saw the match as a bit of a passing of the torch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, first of all, congratulations to him,\u201d said Nadal. \u201cI don\u2019t know, handover, of course it is. He\u2019s 19-years-old. His birthday was yesterday. Me, I\u2019m 36-years-old. Of course it\u2019s a handover.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom here onwards, if it\u2019s today or not, we will see next months. First thing I\u2019m happy in that regard. He has been better than me in several aspects of the match and several aspects of the game, and I need to improve, as I have said, these days. <\/p>\n

\u201cNothing that\u2019s not inside what\u2019s logical, and I just accept it naturally with calm and with security that there is a path to continue until in two-and-a-half weeks\u2019 time, more or less, to try to generate with myself real options, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m working on right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an easy loss to digest in that regard, because we knew what we could expect here, and now because of that, I don\u2019t take away any merit from Carlos. Congratulations to him. He\u2019s playing great, and I hope the best for him for the rest of the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n\nYear<\/strong><\/td>\nTournament<\/strong><\/td>\nResult<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2021<\/td>\nMadrid Open (R32)<\/td>\nNadal beat Alcaraz, 6-1 6-2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2022<\/td>\nIndian Wells (SF)<\/td>\nNadal beat Alcaraz, 6-4 4-6 6-3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2022<\/td>\nMadrid Open (QF)<\/td>\nAlcaraz beat Nadal, 6-2 1-6 6-3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Alcaraz would go onto beat Novak Djokovic<\/a> in his subsequent semi-final match before triumphing over Alexander Zverev<\/a> to win the Madrid Open title.<\/p>\n

The 2025 edition of the tournament is fastly approaching, with Alcaraz one of the Madrid favorites<\/a> as the top seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz has been compared to Rafael Nadal since he first arrived on the ATP Tour as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[4294,6359,22484,4296,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-39617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","10":"tag-madrid-open","11":"tag-rafael-nadal","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114378662702927958","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}