Home » Rafael Nadal was defeated by Carlos Alcaraz in a major victory.

Nine players have achieved at least one victory at each of the four Major competitions before turning 19 since the Open era began in 1968. That was first accomplished by John Alexander in 1969 at the US Open, and then by the great Bjorn Borg, who was the youngest person to do so.

Two of his fiercest adversaries, Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker, joined the list in 1984 and 1985 after Thierry Tulasne done so in 1982. After Borg and Becker, Goran Ivanisevic became the third athlete to win all four Majors before turning 18 years old.

Since there are so few 17-year-old athletes in the Majors main draw, we won’t see the fourth player in that group any time soon. In 1993, Andrei Medvedev joined the party, and it wasn’t until 2005 that Rafael Nadal finally won his first match at his favorite Roland Garros that the list was expanded.

Nadal could have joined the list at a far younger age but was unable to compete in Paris in 2003 and 2004. With victories in all four Majors in 2021, Carlos Alcaraz, another Spaniard, entered the list of the youngest players. Carlos is listed sixth, ahead of Rafa.

Rafael Nadal is older than Carlos Alcaraz, who won all four Major tournaments.

Since 2020, the incredibly gifted adolescent has had an incredible run, winning three Challenger titles in the season’s closing weeks and establishing his dominance at the ATP level in 2021.

Carlos won the first ATP title in Umag in July of last year, making him the youngest winner of an ATP event since Kei Nishikori in 2008. He won the inaugural ATP title despite being only a few weeks Nadal‘s junior. Carlos beat Botic van de Zandschulp in the opening round of the Australian Open to become the youngest winner of a Major since Thanasi Kokkinakis in 2014. Carlos qualified for the tournament in January.

Alcaraz advanced past the first round of qualifying at Roland Garros to make it to the third round, where he received a huge lift that he carried over to Wimbledon. After beating Yasutaka Uchiyama, he fell short against Daniil Medvedev in the next round.

Carlos defeated Cameron Norrie, the 26th seed, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in an hour and 54 minutes while competing at his maiden US Open, earning one of his best victories on the Tour. The youthful player controlled the scoreboard and advanced to the next round by taming his strokes well, hitting over 40 winners, getting broken twice, and intercepting Cameron’s serve six times. Top-4 players Nadal and Alcaraz are in the lead in the ATP Race.