Paris (AFP)

Racquet in hand on the court or controller between the fingers from his sofa, Rafael Nadal is always very hard to beat on clay: the Spaniard dominated the young Denis Shapovalov on Monday for his entry into the Madrid online tournament .

This virtual competition, which players compete in from their place of confinement and called Mutua Madrid open virtual, was set up for charitable purposes by the organizers of the prestigious Spanish Masters 1000 which will not be able to be played this year on the scheduled dates (3 -10 May) due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

If the young generation still has a hard time outperforming him on the courts, in the virtual world, the 33-year-old world N.2 may however suffer against Dominic Thiem (3rd), Stefanos Tsitsipas (6th), Alexander Zverev (7th) or Benoît Paire (22nd). The latter replaces Gaël Monfils (9th), forced to give up at the last moment due to "a conflict of rights between streaming platforms".

A week to the day before the start of the pixel competition, Nadal admitted that he had never played this game before. "I played my first match today (April 20, note)", confided- it to Andy Murray in a direct on Instagram, which had betrayed its difficulties in front of the computer tool.

"It's great, he could win 52 times Roland-Garros and never understand how Instagram works," mocked Murray, also involved in the Madrid virtual tournament.

Finally, Nadal and his avatar were much more effective than expected and outclassed Shapovalov (16th in the world in real life) in front of just over 9,000 spectators live on the tournament's Facebook page.

- "Train me again!" -

"I am ready to train again!" Warned the Majorcan, five-time winner of the Madrid tournament, at the end of the game, once when he was in hard competition (2005) before going on land.

It was David Ferrer, retired from the courts in the real world, and Diego Schwartzman, 13th in the world, who launched the adventure, on a replica of the short Manolo Santana de la Caja Magica de Madrid.

While the players, who have seen it live in an overlay (for the interest but also to prove that it is they who are playing), can communicate with each other, the spectators are entitled to comments as if it were was a real match, with the participation of Alex Corretja, double finalist at Roland Garros, as a consultant.

And history will remember that the Argentine Diego Schwartzman won the first match of the virtual tournament.

Among the ladies, Karolina Pliskova (3rd), Elina Svitolina (5th), Angelique Kerber (21st) and Kristina Mladenovic (42nd) are registered.

Belinda Bencic (8th) played the game until staging, on social networks, an entry worthy of a Masters 1000: announced in voice-over over music, she climbed a staircase in player attire as if it came from a locker room, out of its racket bag ... a game controller and settled in front of a large TV screen.

- Mixed table -

The Swiss faced and beat the Spanish Carla Suarez after exchanges which, in reality, would have made Caja Magica stand up as one man. They are obviously very trained in this video game and we regret not having, for once, a mixed board.

The discordant voice came again from Nick Kyrgios: "Play Call of duty or Fortnite for people to watch, or FIFA", launched the Australian on his Twitter account.

In November, the final of the League of Legends eSports Worlds attracted an average of 21.8 million people in front of their screens ...

After the group matches on Monday and Tuesday, the direct elimination duels will be played on Wednesday, from the quarters to the final. The organizers will distribute 150,000 euros per table (from 2,500 euros for a pool win up to 60,000 euros for a faultless match until the final victory) and each player can donate the amount he wants to his colleagues less well classified.

© 2020 AFP