“My feeling with Rafa Nadal is bad”

Rafa Nadal He lives his last moments as a professional tennis player. The Spaniard confirmed a few days ago that his sports career will end this yearafter he plays the next Davis Cup with Spain, which means that one of the best players of all time and the best athlete in our country will hang up his racket permanently. But he is not the only tennis player with two decades on the circuit who he sees his farewell to professional sports close.

Another generation companion, like Richard Gasquetis also aware that his time at the highest level is running out. At 38 years old, the Frenchman makes it clear that, almost certainly, next season will be his last and begins to prepare his farewell. But, while he arrives, he assures that still have many goals in mindif it is not less true that it has a thorn that will never be able to be removed… and it has to do precisely with Spanish.

Gasquet assures in an interview with Clay who knows that the retreat is imminent and that, with almost complete certainty, will take place at Roland Garros. But he also confesses that he continues to look for elements to motivate himself and maintain competitive tension. So, His intention is to try to get back into the top 100 tennis players. of the world, something that he confesses will not be easy, but for which he will fight in the coming months as his main objective.

But the truth is that Gasquet has a thorn that can no longer be removed and the main responsible It’s Nadal. The Frenchman is known for the elegance and aggressiveness of his game, which led him to be considered one of the most talented players of his generation. In fact, when he was young, he was tipped as the next big sports star. Their numbers were impressive and, in fact, The usual thing is that he beat Nadal with relative solvency, as happened in The Little Ace.

At 16, he became the youngest player in history to finish the year in the Top 200 and, in fact, that same season he became the second youngest player to participate in the final draw of Roland Garros. Once you become a professional, became number 7 in the worldbut a doping case stopped his profession at the best moment. And, although he was always among the best, as the years went by, he little by little fell in the ranking.

You can boast of having 16 ATP titles and being one of the 50 tennis players with the most victories of history, but that rivalry he had with Nadal, where he used to emerge victorious, changed diametrically. Do you know how many times they faced each other as professionals? Eighteen… and, every time, the Spanish won. Gasquet was never able to beat Nadal on the ATP circuit and knows that he will retire without being able to do so, something he would have liked not to be the case.

“The feeling with Nadal is bad because I lost to him 18 timesespecially on clay. But I also lost on hard court. In fact, our last time at the US Open is still on my mind. I lost to him many times and it was really difficultbecause his game was always very complicated for my tennis. We are talking about one of the best players in history. It was always a challenge in all aspects, both tennis-wise, mentally and physically,” says Gasquet.

Now, with Nadal just a few months away from retirement and with Gasquet’s expiration date on the table, the Frenchman confesses that He would have liked to have beaten the Spaniard at least oncesomething that will no longer happen, well They will not see each other again in an official match. It is the great nightmare of a tennis player who became seventh in the world, but who was never able to defeat the Spaniard. A player who, for better or worse, will never forget Rafa Nadal.

Rafa Nadal He lives his last moments as a professional tennis player. The Spaniard confirmed a few days ago that his sports career will end this yearafter he plays the next Davis Cup with Spain, which means that one of the best players of all time and the best athlete in our country will hang up his racket permanently. But he is not the only tennis player with two decades on the circuit who he sees his farewell to professional sports close.