How American doubles specialists took down superstars Nadal, Alcaraz

PARIS – What’s it like to spoil the biggest party in town?

Ask a couple of Americans, who were far from ugly on foreign – and hostile – soil.

Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek, who toil in tennis obscurity relative to the titans who were across the net from them in the Olympic men’s doubles quarterfinals, had their own story to write Wednesday.

Philippe Chatrier may have been Rafael Nadal’s court for the last two decades and Carlos Alcaraz’s for the next two. But in the end, this was the Americans’ turf.

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“Doubles players are certainly deserving and should be respected for what they do,” the 40-year-old Ram said after he and Krajicek delivered a pretty straightforward 6-2, 6-4 defeat to the Nadalcaraz sensation. “I feel like it’s a craft on its own. It’s a different discipline. It’s certainly not the physicality of singles, but it does bring its own set of skills to the table that I think can work even if you’re playing two of the best singles players.”

Though the match turned out to be routine, the occasion was anything but. A full stadium, playing two Spaniards with a combined 26 Grand Slam singles titles and hardly any American flags to be found. Heck, even some people back home were probably rooting for Nadal and Alcaraz to win a medal here in what could very well be the last time Nadal ever takes the court at Roland Garros.

In fact, moments after the match ended, Nadal walked to the middle of the court and waved to the crowd while making a slow, 360-degree turn, as if he were taking in the scene one last time.

“I told Rafa (at the net) it was an honor to play him here,” Ram said.

Was this result an upset? It’s hard to say.

On one hand, Ram and Krajicek are both world-class doubles players, who have worked together the last two years in Davis Cup competitions specifically to prepare for the Olympics since they both have other partners on the regular tour.

Ram has won four Grand Slams with Great Britain’s Joe Salisbury, including the last three US Opens. Krajicek, 34, won the 2023 French Open with Croatia’s Ivan Dodig and reached No. 1 in the world last summer.

This is what they do.

At the same time, there have been numerous examples of top singles players doing very well when they’re motivated to play doubles, a notable example being Nadal winning the doubles gold in 2016 with Marc Lopez or the 2008 Olympics, when Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka teamed up to take home a gold medal for Switzerland.

In this day and age, there’s just not a very big sample size to judge from because so few top men’s singles players even enter doubles at the Grand Slams. It only really happens at the Olympics.

And this time around, the doubles specialists carved up the singles legends like Thanksgiving turkeys. Point after point, Ram and Krajicek were able to use the geometry of the court to put Nadal and Alcaraz in uncomfortable positions, giving them the kinds of angles and awkward shots that they don’t see very often on the singles court.

You could see it develop even on the first point of the match, with Ram making a beautiful move across the net to poach a ball and hit it right at Alcaraz’s feet to handcuff him. Then, on break point, Ram smacked a Nadal serve right at Alcaraz’s body. Intentional or not, a message was sent. The singles guys were going to have a lot more to think about than usual.

“It was just sort of the way we tried to maybe expose some of the things they’re not as comfortable with,” Ram said. “I’m not going to say it’s a weakness because I don’t know if they have weaknesses, per se. But there were things we thought where we could get ahead in points, and it was nice that it worked straightaway. It’s something we talked about for sure.”

In the end, the biggest challenge for the Americans was managing the intangibles. After a dominant first set, the second set was played more tightly. And with each game that went by, the overwhelmingly pro-Spanish crowd began to get more involved.

If someone yelled “Go USA,” boos rained down. Every time there was a possible momentum point in favor of the Spaniards, Nadal played it to the hilt, gesticulating and shaking his fists to get a response from the fans.

“The energy was through the roof,” Krajicek said. “You can feel the momentum going against you. That’s why they’re two of the best ever; they can use a crowd and they do a great job of that.”

It even got disrespectful at the end of the match, as Krajicek stepped up at 5-4 to serve it out, with fans calling out in-between his first and second serves in an attempt to distract him. He almost obliged – almost.

Down 15-40 and the roar building to full tilt, Krajicek made two brilliant serves to get back even. A few moments later, he finished it with an ace off the sideline, with Ram raising his arms in the air when the chair umpire confirmed that the ball was in.

“It was tough,” Krajicek said. “But I would say it was awesome. It was a really cool experience – maybe wouldn’t have been so awesome if I didn’t win the last game. But it was really special to be in that kind of environment and soak it all in. I don’t think you block it out. You try to use it to your advantage and focus on hitting the best serve you can, and I thought we came up with some good answers at the end of the game.”

Now, even more important, Ram and Krajicek have a real chance to win the gold medal. They’ll next play Tomas Machac and Adam Pavlasek of the Czech Republic, who are not nearly as accomplished or experienced.

But they’ll never forget what happened Wednesday.

“I think it’s something we’ll probably look back on and think it’s pretty amazing,” Ram said. “But we’ve come here to do a job and give our best to go all the way.”