ROME: Rafael Nadal was knocked out of the Italian Open in the second round on Saturday with a 6-1, 6-3 loss to Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz.
Defeat to seventh seed Hurkacz casts doubt over whether clay-court icon Nadal will play at the upcoming French Open, where he has won a record 14 titles.
Nadal has said that he will only play at Roland Garros if he feels competitive after a raft of injury problems over the last two years which have left him languishing 305th in the world rankings.
And the manner of his elimination in his first ever encounter with 27-year-old Hurkacz was a step backwards after reaching the last 16 in Madrid.
Nadal held his own in the first two games in the first set, which took 26 minutes to complete, but then fell away as errors handed Hurkacz points.
The 37-year-old twice gave away breaks of serve with miscued drop shots in the first set which Hurkacz closed out in 49 minutes as he blew through five straight games.
And the match was as good as done when Hurkacz, who did not drop a single service game, broke Nadal in the third game of the second set to set up a famous victory.
That level of dominance over Nadal on clay, much less a court where he has won a record 10 titles, would have been unimaginable a few short years ago.
But Hurkacz will face Tomas Etcheverry in the third round after likely ending Nadal’s love affair with Rome as the 22-time Grand Slam winner looks set to call time on his career at the end of the season.
Novak Djokovic made a winning return to Tour after beating French lucky loser Corentin Moutet to reach the third round on Friday night.
The Serbian, playing in his first match since the Monte-Carlo semifinals last month, overcame a sluggish start to win 6-3, 6-1. Following an hour and twenty-six minutes, Djokovic overcame a 1-3 hole in the opening set and effectively countered Moutet’s court craft in the second set to win.
In their second Lexus ATP head-to-head match, Djokovic hit consistently against Moutet, forcing the Frenchman to take chances with his retrieval abilities. According to ATP Stats, the 98-time tour-level champion broke Moutet’s serve six times to advance to an 18-0 lead in the first round of play in Rome.
“Match play is different to practise sets,” Djokovic said. “I played a lefty and I have not practised with a lefty in a while, so it took me a little time to adjust to the different rotations of the ball. The first four games were quite bad from me. A bad start. I lost both my services games.
“But then I played well. I only lost one game from 1-3 down. Corentin is a very talented player. He has great hands and is very unpredictable. You don’t know what comes up next, so I had to stay focused, which I did and it is a good opening match.” Agencies
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