Rafa Nadal is the king of Paris. Neither his injuries in recent seasons nor the doubts about his condition before facing his last date at Roland Garros are going to take that poster away from him. His 14 Musketeers Cups have earned him that title and it is difficult for anyone to match his records on the Parisian clay.
An incontestable dominance that has not been seen on any other surface and that has made his rivals tremble just seeing Rafa’s name in the draw. This is what the former French tennis player has confessed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in an interview with Canal + France. The French, winner of 14 ATP tournaments and became a semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 2011 and 2015has summed up the feeling of the rest of the tennis players when the second major of the season arrived.
“Before the draw, we were all praying not to run into him. We said to each other: ‘Can you imagine that you enter center court and at the end, after two sets, you still haven’t scored a game?'”recalls the French tennis player who retired in May 2022 after several years of living with numerous injuries.
“Everyone wants to see Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros.”
Will we see the GOAT of Roland-Garros again on the Philippe-Chatrier court? In any case, this is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s wish. pic.twitter.com/56LlkyKMl8
— CLIQUE (@cliquetv) May 1, 2024
Tsonga, who became number 5 in the world in 2012, does not hesitate to point out the manacorí as the greatest challenge that a tennis player can face. “What he did at Roland Garros, 14 victories… In fact, I don’t even want to talk about it because it’s so… Honestly, for me, the biggest challenge in tennis was facing Nadal on clay. beaten,” says the French tennis player, who hopes that Nadal can say goodbye as he deserves to the land that has given him so much success.
“Before the draw, we were all praying not to run into him”
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
“Everyone wants to see him at Roland Garros. I want to see him. For a long time I didn’t want to see him on the track. But now we want him to leave in the best possible way, on the court, fighting as he has always done,” concludes Tsonga, who also won the silver medal at the London Games in 2012.
Rafa Nadal, who will begin his participation in Rome tomorrow against Zizou Bergs to measure his fitness before traveling to Paris, has a very difficult time being seeded at Roland Garros. However, the fact that he starts at the bottom of the draw does not make him an affordable rival for anyone, as demonstrated by his 15 wins at Roland Garros.