In the long list of Rafael Nadal’s clay-court accomplishments, his 10 back-to-back titles at Monte Carlo and Barcelona has never received a ton of attention. In some ways, that’s understandable, considering that the competition includes 14 championships at Roland Garros, a 484-51 match record, and 81 straight wins on the surface from 2005 to 2007.
In other ways, though, the Monte Carlo-Barcelona double may represent what was special about Nadal, his tenacity, and his underrated durability as well as anything else he did on dirt. There’s no time in between the tournaments, and there are bigger stages to come on the surface after them; but from his first double in 2005 to his last in 2018, Rafa never held back, or played it safe physically, or lost interest in crossing the finish line at both events.
Maybe today is the day we’ll recognize the difficulty of that feat, because Nadal’s Spanish successor, Carlos Alcaraz, tried and failed to do it for the first time. He was coming off his first victory in Monte Carlo, and a follow-up title in Barcelona looked more and more like a sure thing as Sunday approached. He hadn’t dropped a set on his way to the final, and on Friday and Saturday he had beaten two in-form opponents, Arthur Fils and Alex De Minaur, in convincing fashion.
