Eurosport
January 21, 2025

Is Rafael Nadal for real? You bet. At 17, he reached his first tournament final last week and crushed the Czech Michal Tabara in the first round of the Australian Open. But now, the Spaniard faces a Frenchman who beat him only two weeks ago.

When he won a match in his home tournament of Mallorca at 15 years, 10 months, he turned heads. When he made the third round of Wimbledon last year just after turning 17, he caused a stir.

Now, after impressing in Auckland and demolishing Tabara 6-1 6-2 6-2, Nadal may yet cause a sensation.

Not so fast, warns the cool-headed teenager:

"This first match was a match that shouldn't have been as easy," Nadal told Eurosport.

"I won the first set starting well with an early break, it gave me confidence. Then in the two following sets he didn't play so well."

He also knows better than to overlook his next opponent, France's Thierry Ascione who beat him two weeks ago 7-6 6-4 in Chennai.

Ascione, 23, comes off the biggest win of his career, a 7-5 6-1 7-6 upset of 23rd seed Felix Mantilla of Spain.

"It's a good result," a smiling Ascione told us. "It's only my second grand slam, in Roland Garros I haven't done anything because I had no experience at the time, so this time I used that experience and it worked."

Ascione relishes the challenge that awaits against Nadal:

"It's a going to be a great fight. Every time he [Nadal] hits the ball, it's to blast a hole and knock his opponent ten metres back," said the lanky Frenchman.

But wonderkid Nadal is now a man for all surfaces, who's grown in the two weeks since his encounter with Saulnier [?Ascione].

And as the Spaniard told us, he feels right at home on the hardcourt surface of Melbourne Park:

"It's a surface which is not so different from clay, it's pretty slow," said Nadal. "I already played on this kind of surface last week [in Auckland] and I went to the final making a great tournament, so hopefully I can make a good tournament here."