Carlos Alcaraz’s loss shows the Monte Carlo-Barcelona double isn’t as easy as Rafael Nadal made it look

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.

Through the first five games against Holger Rune on Sunday, Alcaraz looked even more convincing. He came out firing forehands with a mix of pace and precision, and broke Rune for 3-2 with a blistering ball that skidded off the sideline. The crowd roared, in appreciation of the shot, and in anticipation of a home-country title that seemed to be right around the corner.

Then, in the next game, Alcaraz’s momentum came to a screeching halt. The forehand that had looked so self-assured one game earlier suddenly began to look tentative. He smothered two into the net and was broken. Rune twice held at love, and reached double set point on Alcaraz’s serve at 5-4.

Alcaraz wriggled his way out of that bind with a perfectly played forehand drop shot, and pushed Rune to a tiebreaker. The breaker would be a rerun of the set they’d just played: Again, Alcaraz went up early with a forehand winner; again, he grew tentative with a lead, sending a backhand long and a forehand into the net and going down 6-4; and again, he saved two set points with some vintage baseline brilliance. Finally, at 6-7, on Rune’s fifth set point, Alcaraz couldn’t walk the ledge any longer. A shanked forehand lost him the set.

And, essentially, the match. Early in the second, Alcaraz received a medical time-out and went off court for what looked like a hip flexor issue. He was able to rally with Rune, and he earned two break-back points at 3-2. But he couldn’t find the forehand he needed, and Rune ran away with the second for a 7-6 (6), 6-2 win, and his first title since 2023.

The telltale stat for this match was Alcaraz’s winner-error ratio: He hit 16 of the former, and made 33 of the latter. That said, Rune earned the win. He came in 1-2 against Alcaraz—the two grew up together in the juniors—but with his strength and athleticism, the Dane has always been able to stay with him physically.

On Sunday, perhaps because he had little to lose, Rune reined himself in and played with a balance of fearlessness and purpose that often eludes him. On crucial points, he attacked, leaned into his ground strokes, and delivered the first blow. When Alcaraz took control, Rune defended well, with low and difficult passing shots that the Spaniard struggled to handle. Rather than get tight with a lead, which has happened to him in finals before, Rune play with more freedom. His running crosscourt pass to break for 5-2 in the second sealed his fifth career title, and made him someone to watch as we wind closer to Roland Garros.

Afterward, Alcaraz traded resigned smiles with his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and looked as if he was trying to figure out how he had gone from clear favorite to runner-up in a little more than an hour.

Maybe, among those thoughts, Carlitos spared one for Rafa. Now the heir to the throne has a clearer understanding of how hard it is to keep firing your forehand, keep your confidence from dropping, and keep grinding down tough opponents, day after day, over two tournaments in two different countries across two weeks. Nadal’s record of 10 Monte Carlo-Barcelona doubles looks safer than ever.