Rafael Nadal started off his 2024 season with a dominating win against Dominic Thiem. After his win in the first round, Eurosport posted a picture about Nadal that got many tennis lover talking. In the post, the broadcast giant mentioned that Rafael Nadal has won at least one ATP singles match in a year since 2002. The famous tennis page even captioned this as an ‘incredible achievement’ from the Spaniard.
But many tennis fans on social media did not take the picture too well and dismissed it as an underachievement. Some believe that Eurosport were trying too hard to praise Rafael Nadal, while others commented that this was not worthy to post at all. Richard Gasquet also found a mention in the comments because apparently, he has a similar record like Nadal’s but that was never mentioned by the Eurosport account.
achievement!
Rafael Nadal has won at least one match every year since 2002 ️ pic.twitter.com/v8uutGKdzd
— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 2, 2024
At least One Match?
That’s an achievement worth mentioning?
— Ivan Castillo (@IvanCaslass) January 2, 2024
what kind of nonsense is this? Are you running out of stats?
— Phenomenal Facts (@Phenomenal2104) January 3, 2024
Incredible achievement!
Richard Gasquet has won at least one match every year since 2002️ pic.twitter.com/T0qvLrO2VO
— Cicke ☮ (@Cicke69) January 2, 2024
No big records for Nadal so you have to go with this nonsense.
— Novak Goat 2⃣4⃣ (@novak_goat) January 2, 2024
Will this make an official ATP stat record?
— Nada (@nadulinche) January 2, 2024
I mean…really?
— DjokeRui (@ruidpinheiro) January 2, 2024
Stop this, embarrassing
— Alexander (@NoleFansSweden) January 2, 2024
Rafael Nadal has been Rafael Nadal every year since 1986. Incredible achievement.
— tangxun (@XunTang1) January 3, 2024
When you try to dig out some stats to try and catch Djokovic
— Ahmed Baroun (@baroun_ahmed) January 3, 2024
Can you calculate how many matches he has won at least 10 points while you’re at it? The level of desperation in this post is hilarious and embarrassing at the same time.
— Damian Andrews-Wilson (@thedla36) January 3, 2024
Although Rafael Nadal is one of the greatest players of all0time, this ‘achievement’ had the fans divided. While there are fans who consider this as an impressive achievement, but a larger section of tennis fans felt it was far-fetched.
Defeating Dominic Thiem ensured that Nadal notched up his 1069th career win. This puts him at No.3 in the all-time list, behind Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
Rafael Nadal lost his Top 10 ranking for the first time since 2005
Rafael Nadal had been in the top 10 of the ATP men’s singles world rankings from 2005-2022, for a super 915 weeks. However, after suffering an injury in 2023, the Spaniard dropped out of the top 10 rankings, also largely due to a change in the scoring system. Remarkably, when Rafael Nadal first cracked the top 10 code, current Wimbledon champion and fellow Spaniard, Carlos Alcaraz was just a 1-year-old.
Now, Nadal is ranked 672nd in the world, However, the Spaniard will hope to reclaim his ranking at the top of the men’s game soon. The 37-year-old is set to face Australia’s Jason Kubler in the Round of 16. This will be the first meeting between the duo. Tennis fans all over the world will be excited to see how the Spaniard progresses in the Brisbane International 2024, as a warmup for the Australian Open 2024 tournament.
