Paris Olympics: We have a classic! Nadal advances to face Djokovic

Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have had some epic duels throughout the past 18 years. At this year's Olympics, they have taken care to secure one more. Considering their age and Nadal's injury problems - perhaps the last one. The Spaniard started the tennis singles tournament at the Olympics with a harder-than-expected victory over Marton Fucsovics from Hungary 2-1 (6-1, 4-6, 6-4). In the second round, he will face his greatest rival, who beat the Australian Matthew Ebden 2-0 (6-0, 6-1) yesterday.

In the first set, Nadal completely crushed Fucsovics in a little over half an hour, allowing him to take just one single game. However, the Hungarian started serving much better in the second period and won it 6-4 thanks to an early break. Subsequently, Fucsovics led 2-1 and had three break points in the third set, but the "King of Clay" managed to escape a problematic situation and emerge victorious.

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Nadal and Djokovic's clash was uncertain in the first place since the 38-year-old Spaniard wasn't sure he would even participate in the singles tournament due to injury issues and fatigue. Yesterday, Rafa and Carlos Alcaraz won their doubles first-round match against the Argentinians Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 2-0 (7-6(4), 6-4). However, in the end, Nadal opted to play, and so far, it turned out to be a good choice, given that he succeeded in advancing to the next round.

So far, the two legendary players have met 59 times, with the Serb winning only one match more. Nadal's equalization or Djokovic's "+2", we'll see on Monday afternoon.