It’s very simple. Rafael Nadal, 22 Grand Slam titles, told the Associated Press that Roger Federer and he thought they had been “much, much better” than Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner or Alexander Zverev. Word for word: “Yes, we think we were much, much better!”
I’ve been saying that sentence for years at the Léopold, nobody listens to me. Me, in Kitzbühel, in ’92, against a future top 10, I was already saying my generation was better than the next one. The next one didn’t exist yet, true. I was anticipating.
And then he burst out laughing. He added that his exchanges with Federer, almost every week, are mostly about golf, sport and daily life. Careful, I’m not saying the opposite of what I just said. I’m clarifying: ninety percent of the great truths of tennis are told laughing, and I’m being kind. The laugh is the wrapping. The sentence stays.
He also said he is open to an exhibition with Federer, without announcing anything. His words: “We will see what happens in the future, whether something comes together or not.” I said it back in January. Well, I said something would happen, or not. Check it, the spirit was there.
On hard courts, he says, “we play most of the time on a surface that is very, let’s say, aggressive for the body and the joints”, and then “we pay the price.” There, I agree, but with a nuance: at the Léopold we play on crushed brick and I pay anyway. All right?
Jean-Pol, last week you said Sinner was the best of all time. I wrote it down in my folder.
Sinner is the best of all current times. Nadal is talking about the times before. No contradiction, right. If an exhibition gets organised, I’m available to commentate on it, the RTBF (Belgium’s French-language public broadcaster) has had my number since 1992.
It’s true, we checked: Tennis Actu.
