Rafael Nadal in action© AFP

Rafael Nadal returned to competition for the first time since his early French Open exit on Monday, teaming up with Casper Ruud for a doubles win in Bastad. It was Nadal’s first match since the 38-year-old fell to Alexander Zverev in the opening round at Roland Garros on May 27 as he prepares for the Paris Olympics. The Spaniard and Ruud, 25, won 6-1, 6-4 in the rain-interrupted clay-court match against second seeds Guido Andreozzi of Argentina and Miguel Reyes-Varela of Mexico.

Wild card entries Nadal and Ruud, who trained at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, looked at home on the Swedish clay, racing through the first set with two breaks.

Play was suspended at 3-3 in the second due to rain and briefly a second time before Nadal and Ruud, saw out the match in 79 minutes.

“We played quite well for it being the first time that we played together,” said Nadal.

“And yeah, happy to be back here after almost 20 years. I have great memories of this place from 2003, 2004, 2005. I am enjoying this week and hopefully we can keep going.”

Nadal lifted the singles title in Bastad as a 19-year-old in 2005.

This month he skipped Wimbledon to focus on the Olympics which will be played at Roland Garros where he won 14 French Open titles.

In Paris, Nadal plans to compete in the singles and doubles with Carlos Alcaraz, winner of the Wimbledon tournament on Sunday.

“It was an amazing day for Spanish sport,” said Nadal of Alcaraz’s win and Spain’s Euro 2024 triumph.

“The Spanish team played an amazing Euro Cup since the first day to the last. We are very proud, all the country, about what they did. I was a very happy day yesterday too, with Carlos winning Wimbledon.”

The 22-time Grand Slam champion is also playing in the singles where he will take on Leo Borg, the 21-year-old son of the long-retired former world number one Bjorn Borg, now 68.

Ruud added: “He did well and we played good doubles and it was a lot of fun to share the court with Rafa as always.

“I’m used to it more than Rafa, being from Norway,” he said of the rain delays before joking about Nadal’s age.

“And he’s getting old so I’m not sure how the body feels when he has to stop and start all the time.”

Borg, currently ranked 467 in the world, lost his doubles match on Monday.

Carlos Alcaraz raced into the Wimbledon third round on Wednesday to set up a mouth-watering duel with fellow crowd-pleaser Frances Tiafoe as Japanese superstar Naomi Osaka returned to Centre Court for the first time in five years. Alcaraz defeated Australia’s world number 69 Aleksandar Vukic 7-6 (7/5), 6-2, 6-2 on the back of 42 winners. The third-seeded Spaniard’s only moments of concern came in the first set when he let slip a 5-2 lead and found himself 5-6 down with Vukic serving for the opener.

However, the three-time major winner steadied the ship to race away to victory against a player who got the better of him in qualifying at the 2020 French Open. 

Alcaraz next faces Tiafoe, the American player he defeated in five sets in the semi-finals of the 2022 US Open on his way to his first Grand Slam triumph.

“I’m going for him,” said Alcaraz, who is bidding to become just the sixth man after Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to win the French Open and Wimbledon titles back to back.

“I’m ready to play a really high level of tennis and hopefully take him.”

Tiafoe made the third round by seeing off Borna Coric in straight sets.

‘Love and hate’

Eccentric Fabio Fognini of Italy needed a clutch of match points to knock out eighth-seeded Casper Ruud 6-4, 7-5, 6-7 (1/7), 6-3.

The 37-year-old Fognini, sporting bleach-blond hair, twice served for the match from 5-2 up in the third set before sealing victory over the three-time Grand Slam runner-up in the fourth set.

“It just shows why I love and hate this sport,” said Fognini.

Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 US Open champion, came back from dropping the first set and facing two set points in the second to see off Alexandre Muller of France 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (7/4), 6-4, 7-5.

World number two and US Open champion Coco Gauff cruised into the third round with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Romanian qualifier Anca Todoni.

“I’m happy with the way I played, could have been cleaner on some points,” said Gauff, who broke her 19-year-old opponent five times.

The American, who made her career breakthrough at Wimbledon as a 15-year-old qualifier in 2019, goes on to face British qualifier Sonay Kartal, the world number 298.

The last time four-time major winner Osaka appeared on Centre Court was in 2019 when she was second seed but was dumped out in the first round by Yulia Putintseva.

Five years on, she is ranked at 113 having only returned to the tour in January after giving birth to daughter Shai in July last year.

All-Italian fight

Osaka’s win over Diane Parry in the first round was her first at Wimbledon since 2018.

The Japanese star takes on America’s 17th-ranked Emma Navarro, who arrived in London on the back of a semi-final run at the Bad Homburg grass-court tournament.

Later Wednesday, world number one Jannik Sinner will take on Italian compatriot and former runner-up Matteo Berrettini.

Italian men’s tennis has rarely been stronger, with the country boasting five players in the top 50 while the nation swept to Davis Cup glory last season.

Ten Italian men started the singles tournament this year at Wimbledon.

Sinner was the first Italian man to capture a Grand Slam title with his victory at the Australian Open in January and was also the first from his country to become world number one.

“I feel like in Italy we have so many tournaments, starting with juniors, then the Futures and Challengers,” said 22-year-old Sinner.

“We have big, big ATP tournaments there. We have good facilities and great coaches.”

Berrettini can boast his own breakthrough Italian moment when he was the first to make a Wimbledon men’s final in 2021.

Sinner made the semi-finals at the All England Club last year where he was defeated by Djokovic.

There could be a memorable day for Chinese tennis with teenager Shang Juncheng taking on 10th-seeded Grigor Dimitrov and 32nd seed Zhang Zhizhen facing Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff.

Until Monday, no Chinese man had won a match at Wimbledon in the Open era.

Casper Ruud said he would love to think 2024 is finally his year at the French Open, but added that Novak Djokovic remained his favourite to win the tournament, which starts on Sunday. Twice a runner-up in Paris, Ruud heads to Roland-Garros on a high after winning the Geneva Open title for a third time — but said Djokovic, the world number one and defending champion, remained top of the pecking order, despite a shaky season so far. Norwegian Ruud, the world number seven, beat 44th-ranked Czech Tomas Machac 7-5, 6-3 in Saturday’s final to add to the Geneva trophies he won in 2021 and 2022.

Machac knocked out Djokovic in the Geneva semi-finals, with the 37-year-old Serb struggling to find his usual impeccable rhythm.

Ruud, 25, has lost in the last two French Open finals — including last year to Djokovic.

Asked if he thought this year could be the moment to go one better, Ruud said: “I would love to, and I would love to think that way, but I’m not really expecting that this year is the year I’m going to win it.

“It’s so open these days and of course to me, even though Novak has had maybe a tougher year than usual, I would still consider him the favourite. He’s arriving there with 24 Grand Slams in the bag.”

Rival contenders

Besides Rafael Nadal, who has won a record 14 French Open titles, Ruud said “many have been talking about” Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz for the title — while Alexander Zverev won in Rome and Stefanos Tsitsipas in Monte Carlo on the clay this year.

Ruud, who won Barcelona on the clay, will face Brazilian qualifier Felipe Meligeni Alves in the first round at Roland-Garros.

Ruud said he was targeting getting through the opening rounds, and taking it from there.

“The goal, like any other Slam, is to reach the second week and from there, typically I’ve seen that things open up a little bit,” he said.

“Maybe you play someone who’s tired. If you’re physically ready for the second week of a Slam, a lot of good things might happen.”

Play ‘real matches’

The 28-man Geneva tournament serves as a warm-up before the French Open, the second of the year’s four Grand Slams.

Ruud certainly got some practice in for the rigours of five-set Grand Slam matches.

Rain delays meant he played two matches in one day on Saturday, first beating Italy’s in-form Flavio Cobolli 1-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7/4) in a roller coaster semi-final before going on to defeat Machac.

“I wanted to build up some momentum for Paris and I think I’ve been able to do that and hopefully I can bring it on to Paris,” Ruud said.

“Physically it’s good preparation, and you look at all the other players in Paris, what do they do in training? They play matches. So why don’t you come here and play a real match instead of just practice matches?

“It’s been a great week in terms of winning and also building up the form and the physical aspects for Paris.”