20 years since Rafael Nadal won his first of 92 titles | ATP Tour

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It’s been 20 years since Nadal won his first of 92 titles

The Spaniard made his debut in Sopot 2004, after beating Acasuso in the final

August 15, 2024

August 15, 2004. That was the date Rafael Nadal opened his career with his first ATP Tour title on the clay of Sopot. At the time, the Spaniard was 18 years, 2 months and 11 days old, and he probably couldn’t have imagined that he would still have the opportunity to lift 91 more trophies throughout his career, 22 of them Grand Slam titles.

Perhaps his rival – four years older – that Sunday in the final, the Argentine José Acasuso, did not expect the player on the other side of the net to write a legendary career, but he did sense that his talent was not like that of other boys his age.

“Wow! It was so long ago now?” Acasuso responded to ATPTour.com’s call to recall that day. “From time to time I remember, or people remind me, that it was the first tournament Nadal won, so I always have it in mind.”

Acasuso, who had already been champion in Sopot two years earlier in 2002, would still play two more finals on the Polish clay. “It was a tournament that I liked. In 2004, I was drawn against Rafa who showed that he was going to be good, he already was, but he was just starting to stand out before he started winning everything in 2005: Monte Carlo, Barcelona, ​​Rome, Roland Garros and he started to become a monster on clay.”

Even though the Manacor native’s trophy cabinet was empty before that final, his name was already making a strong impression on the circuit. That same year he had already reached his first final in Auckland (l. to Dominik Hrbaty) and at the ATP Masters 1000 in Miami he gave no chance to No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings Roger Federer in two sets (6-3, 6-3).

But these were not the only highlights of his young career. In 2002, at just 16 years old, he had already recorded his first ATP Tour victory in Mallorca, where he had received a wild card, against Paraguayan world No. 81 Ramón Delgado.

“I was surprised, but not so surprised,” Acasuso recalls. “I had already seen him a couple of years before, in 2002, when he played in Mallorca and beat Ramón Delgado. It already seemed like a great player was coming, there was already talk.”

In Sopot, he was already No. 71 and he beat Victor Hanescu (first round), Arnaud di Pasquale (second round), Franco Squillari (quarter-finals) and Felix Mantilla (semi-finals) without dropping a set. And against Acasuso he repeated the same script 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 36 minutes.

“More than his level of tennis, I was surprised by his head, his fighting spirit. He looked very determined and hungry for glory,” added the Argentine about his first match against the Spaniard. “The approach he had to do things was incredible, the famous ‘play point by point’ that we tennis players always say.”

If there is one thing that all the players who faced Nadal in his early years of career agree on, it is that beyond his virtues with the racket, his conviction, attitude and mental strength were not typical of a child of his age.

“It seemed like he had been on the circuit for several years,” Acasuso confirms. “His mentality and the way he was in the match was striking. Watching him, you already had the feeling that he was different, that at 17 or 18 years old he wasn’t going to give you a point. He was going to go out and win no matter what.”

Less than four months earlier in Estoril, the Spaniard had to retire in the quarter-finals (walkover) without being able to take the court against the Georgian Irakli Labadze. That foot injury, which would mark the rest of his career and for which he even heard that his career could be in danger, prevented him from taking on the rest of the clay court tour and postponed his first experience at Roland Garros.

“There was already talk of what Nadal could become, but sometimes there was also talk of other players and then they didn’t end up being as great,” Acasuso reflects. “In his case, it was like you felt that he could beat everyone, he had the mind of a born competitor, beyond his good shots.”

“His head was superior, he made the difference,” the Argentine continued his analysis of the young Nadal. “Already at 16 or 17 he was very professional. How he stood on the court, how he played, the moves he tried to make… at that age, going out to compete on equal terms with anyone, being so young, is something that never happens or didn’t happen at that time with other players.”

And in Sopot, that’s how Nadal did it to win the first of his 92 ATP Tour titles. It was the first chapter of one of the greatest stories ever told.