PARIS — Top-seeded Serbian Novak Djokovic overcame a brief bout of nerves in the second set before beating 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal 6-1, 6-4 at the Paris Olympics on Monday.
While Djokovic moves into the third round in pursuit of his elusive Olympic gold, Spain’s Nadal has only the doubles competition left to add to his two Olympic gold medals, partnering with Carlos Alcaraz.
Djokovic, who has won 24 Grand Slam singles titles to Nadal’s 22, left nothing to chance in the 60th all-time meeting between the longtime rivals with a flawless display over a set and a half.
The World No. 2 stretched the 38-year-old Spaniard with punishing groundstrokes and perfect drop shots, making him look his age as he raced through the first set and went 4-0 up in the second.
The Roland Garros crowd was ready for a mouth-watering epic between greats, but instead they were treated to what looked like a fast-track Djokovic win.
Nadal, with his thigh wrapped due to a recent injury, was spilling unforced errors across Court Philipp Chatrier, a venue he has dominated like no other player, and lacked precision and consistency.
Early in the second set he had 13 errors, almost three times as many as Djokovic (five).
Shaking his head in disbelief, and with the crowd sensing the end of an era was fast approaching, Nadal, who has been struggling for form after a string of injuries in recent seasons, seemed on his way to one of the most bruising defeats of his career on his favorite clay surface.
But he was not going to go down without a fight and eventually gave his fans something to shout about.
A Djokovic double fault saw Nadal pull back to 4-2 and that was celebrated like a victory with almost the entire stadium jumping from their seats to cheer him on.
After another two games the Spaniard was level but instead of completing a comeback that looked all but impossible minutes earlier, it was nothing more than a reprieve as the 37-year-old Djokovic sealed victory on his first match point with an ace.
Nadal said he will wait until after the Olympics to discuss his retirement plans.
“I cannot spend every day thinking about whether it is the last or not, because otherwise it is impossible,” he said.
“I have the doubles left. It is not time to get down,” Nadal added. “When I finish here I will make the decisions I have to make here.”
Djokovic is rooting for Nadal to keep playing.
“I just hope for the sake of our rivalry and the sport in general that we’ll get to face each other once or maybe a few times on different surfaces and in different parts of the world because I feel like it can only benefit the sport,” Djokovic said.
Alcaraz was also in action in the singles but was never seriously pressured in his 6-1, 7-6 victory over Dutch opponent Tallon Griekspoor. Eighth-seed Stefanos Tsitsipas punched his ticket for the next round, with the Greek finding even less resistance in his 6-1, 6-2 victory over Britain’s Daniel Evans.
Sixth seed Casper Ruud of Norway was made to work harder in his three-set win over Italy’s Andrea Vavassori.
In the women’s draw No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland crushed France’s Diane Parry 6-1, 6-1.
She was joined in the next round by Czech Barbora Krejcikova, the new Wimbledon champion, who advanced with a straight sets victory over China’s Wang Xinyu as did American Coco Gauff, beating Argentine Maria Lourdes Carle 6-1, 6-1.