Nadal dominates against Blanch in one-sided Madrid encounter

It’s the kind of sentence you have to read over again to ensure you understood it properly the first time – by the time Darwin Blanch was born, Rafael Nadal had already claimed 23 tour-level titles.

Drawn together in the first round of the 2024 Mutua Madrid Open, the Spanish master handed out a tennis lesson to the 16-year-old wildcard – 21 years and 117 days his junior, the biggest ever age gap between two opponents at Masters 1000 level.

Blanch – watched over by another Spanish legend in Juan Carlos Ferrero, whose academy he attends – is currently ranked as one of the ten best juniors in the world, and made his ATP Tour debut at Miami earlier in the year.

Nadal, meanwhile, is simply trying to make the most of what looks set to be a valedictory circuit on the tour this year as he endeavours to recover from the injuries that have plagued him in recent years. He did not look in too much difficulty on Thursday, though – winning 6-1, 6-0 in 63 minutes.

Nadal: Blanch has a great future

Nadal hit nine winners and the same number of unforced errors, with Blanch hitting three times that many – gifting points to the 22-time Grand Slam champion.

Nadal also dominated on serve, winning 79 per cent of his points on first serve and 73 on second – with Blanch winning 52 and 17 respectively. However, the American can take some heart from the way he began his service games – with two aces – and from the words his rival spoke in tribute to him afterwards.

“Today I played against an opponent with a great future in front but today still making mistakes,” the 37-year-old said afterwards, “so I tried to be there, be solid all the time without taking a lot of risks, and worked well, so happy to be through and wish him all the very best for the future.”

But the legend knows he will have a tougher prospect in the second round as he faces tenth seed Alex de Minaur – the man who beat him in Barcelona just last week.

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