Culture
Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz confirmed as Olympic doubles pair for Spain
Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz will represent Spain as a tennis doubles pairing at the Paris Olympics, which begins on July 26.
David Ferrer, the former world No 3 and current national selector for Spain, announced at a Royal Spanish Tennis Federation (RFET) press conference on Wednesday that Spain’s men’s team will include Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam champion, Alcaraz, the three-time Grand Slam champion, Pablo Carreno Busta, and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Marcel Granollers, a doubles specialist whose partnership with Argentinian Horacio Zeballos is currently the best in the world by combined ranking, is also included.
Ferrer said that he believes Nadal and Alcaraz “have the capacity to win a medal in doubles” after the team announcement.
This will be Alcaraz’s first Olympics, coming after his title defence at Wimbledon, which begins on July 1, and his recent victory over Alexander Zverev in the Roland Garros final last Sunday. Nadal is currently on the entry list for Wimbledon, using his protected injury ranking of 10, but said after exiting Roland Garros that playing “wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Nadal, who already holds a singles gold medal from Beijing 2008 and a doubles gold medal from Rio de Janeiro 2016 with Marc Lopez, will compete in his last Games. Although he has not announced his retirement date, he has not ruled out a return to the French Open in 2025 after losing to Zverev in the first round this year.
Paula Badosa, meanwhile, will not feature due to WTA rules. Badosa has chosen to use her protected injury ranking to enter the next two Grand Slam tournaments, at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, which begins in late August; the former world No 2 was not permitted to use that ranking for both tournaments and the Olympics. Sara Sorribes Tormo and Cristina Bucsa will be Spain’s representatives on the women’s side.
GO DEEPER
100 days until the Olympic Games – is Paris ready?
(Candice Ward/Getty Images)
Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
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