Fernando Verdasco Carmona is a Spanish professional tennis player and coach. His career-high singles ranking is world No. 7, achieved in April 2009. His best performance at a major was the semifinals of the 2009 Australian Open, where he lost to eventual champion Rafael Nadal in five sets. The match itself has been considered one of the greatest tennis matches of all time. Verdasco has also reached the quarterfinals twice at the US Open, in 2009 and 2010, losing to Novak Djokovic and Nadal respectively, and once at the 2013 Wimbledon Championships, where he led eventual champion Andy Murray by two sets to love before being defeated in five sets. In singles, he won the 2010 Barcelona Open Banco Sabadell and six ATP 250 tournaments, and was a finalist at the 2010 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters and five ATP 500 tournaments. In men's doubles, he won the 2013 ATP World Tour Finals and three ATP 500 tournaments and was a finalist at the 2013 Shanghai Rolex Masters, all of them partnering David Marrero. Verdasco earned his 500th win at the 2018 Mutua Madrid Open becoming the 45th man in ATP World Tour history with 500 wins. He is currently No. 7 on the list of active players with over 500 wins. He has the second-most losses in singles history, behind Feliciano López (490). Verdasco aided Spain in winning three Davis Cup titles, winning the deciding match in both 2008 and 2009, and being part of the winning team in 2011. Verdasco started playing tennis at four years of age and had a full-time coach when he was eight. Verdasco worked in Las Vegas with Andre Agassi and his team, including Darren Cahill and Gil Reyes.

Rafael Nadal Parera is a Spanish professional tennis player. Nadal has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 209 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. Nadal has won 22 Grand Slam men's singles titles, including a record 14 French Open titles. He has won 92 ATP-level singles titles, including 36 Masters titles and an Olympic gold medal, with 63 of these on clay courts. Nadal is one of only two men to complete the Career Golden Slam in singles. His 81 consecutive wins on clay constitute the longest single-surface win streak in the Open Era.