It’s very simple. Rafael Nadal told AP News that stretching the Masters 1000s over two weeks was “a mistake”. I said it back in January. Not this January, another one, but I said it.
I read it in the DH (a Belgian daily), in the living room, in Uccle (or Waterloo, I’m not redoing the land register). And I put the paper down with the calm of a man who has been right for a long time.
Nadal also wants a rolling ranking over the last two years rather than twelve months, as in golf. Two years, right. Me, my Kitzbühel ranking from ’92 is calculated over thirty-four years, and it still holds. Nobody has ever found it, which proves how stable it is.
And he wants fewer hard courts, more clay and grass. “In tennis, we play most of the time on surfaces that are very aggressive for the body and the joints,” he said. Careful, I’m not saying the opposite of what I said last year when I was defending hard courts. I’m clarifying: I was defending hard courts for other people.
He is also in touch with Roger Federer almost every week. Almost every week. Me, the RTBF (Belgium’s French-language public broadcaster) doesn’t call me once a year. Ninety per cent of the circuit’s good ideas come from people who phone each other, and I’m being kind.
Silly question, but if the ranking covers two years, can Jean-Pol finally appear in it?
No. All right? On 28 February, Nadal plays the MGM Slam at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The other participants will be announced in the coming weeks. My number, meanwhile, has been in the phone book since 1992.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
