Barcelona Open: De Minaur spoils Nadal’s return to reach next round

Alex de Minaur ended Rafael Nadal’s comeback week on Wednesday, when he defeated the Spaniard 7-5, 6-1 at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell.

The fourth seed produced brick wall consistency and displayed flashy quickness to freely guard the entire court throughout the one-hour, 52-minute match, improving to 2-3 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with the 12-time Barcelona champion.

The World No. 11 in the PIF ATP Rankings jumped out to a 3-1 lead before Nadal raised his level and backhand intensity, crushing a winner off that wing to hold for 4-3 and capture his third consecutive game.

After dropping the opening game of the second set, the 25-year-old tallied six straight games to set a third-round meeting with 16th seed Arthur Fils or German Daniel Altmaier.

Nadal was playing his second tournament of 2024 and first since January when he was a quarter-finalist at the ATP 250 in Brisbane. The 92-time tour-level titlist defeated Flavio Cobolli in the opening round before falling to De Minaur. Nadal boasts a 67-5 match record across 17 appearances in Barcelona, where he first won the title in 2005 and most recently triumphed in 2021.

A semi-finalist in Barcelona two years ago, De Minaur became the first Australian to beat Nadal on clay. The former No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings was aiming to become the oldest player (37) to reach the third round in Barcelona tournament history (Open Era) and record his first Top 20 win since November 2022.