The whole tennis world is kneeling before the feat achieved by Rafael Nadal after winning his 14th Roland Garros. The Spaniard has added a new Grand Slam to his locker and is already ahead of his two pursuers and is at the top of the podium with 22. The former tennis player John McEnroe He has stated for Eurosport that the feat achieved by Nadal will not be seen again in the future of tennis: “What Nadal has achieved will never happen again in our sport”.
The race for the highest Grand Slams
The former American tennis player, champion of seven Grand Slams, also gave his opinion on the race between Nadal, Djokovic and Federer to see who is the greatest tennis player in history. McEnroe assured that what the Big-3 has achieved is something amazing: “It’s incredible. A player, Pete Sampras took 35 years to catch Roy Emerson. We were thinking it would be another 30 years before the record would be broken again, and now it’s not just one, but there are three tennis players who are getting it”.
“Most of us think that Novak Djokovic would be the one to tip the scales in his favor, but then there was that horrible debacle in Australia, that the Serbian could not attend the first important appointment of the year. And after that, I don’t think Novak thought Rafa would go and win the Australian Open.” In this way, Nadal was ahead of the Serb and the Swiss by winning his 21st Grand Slam in January by winning the Australian Open. Thus, McEnroe believes that Djokovic did not think that Nadal could win the Australian Open and, much less, that he could repeat the feat in Paris.
Djokovic and Nadal arrived at totally different times at the Paris event. The Serbian was on the rise, raising his level more and more and recovering the best sensations. Meanwhile, the Spanish came with a sea of doubts after falling back from his ailments in his foot. “Djokovic arrived at Roland-Garros thinking ‘I have to catch this guy’, and then Nadal raised the level and won a new trophy in Paris. If anyone comes close to this, I’ll do a headstand and do a full stream like this; If I’m invited back in 15 years and Casper Ruud just won his 14th consecutive Roland Garros, I’ll do a handstand for the entire broadcast.”
A totally unrepeatable feat
McEnroe, like most of the legends of this sport, only had words of thanks for Rafa, while the American thinks that something like this will not be seen again in the history of tennis. “What Nadal has achieved will never, ever happen again in our sport. For a man or a woman to win such a large number of Grand Slam trophies, so we should enjoy it while we can. Rafa has been giving signs that she may not play another Roland Garros, possibly. I don’t know if that’s true, but it seems conceivable that it’s the one in his last game.”
After the final, Nadal dropped that this could have been his last match at Roland Garros and, furthermore, that he has not set a date for his return to the courts, since he is going to treat his foot to find a solution to his ailments. If he succeeds in a short space of time, Nadal will be able to play the third Grand Slam of the year, something that McEnroe would bet on if it were him. “He has talked about not playing Wimbledon… why wouldn’t he play Wimbledon if he won the Australian Open and Roland Garros? He could win the Grand Slam, so we’ll see what he decides to do”.
