Rafael Nadal wasn’t even 17 in 2003, when he started showing his great talent to the world. He won 2 Challengers titles and succeeded in masters 1000 in the same year and the world immediately started praising him.
Four years later, the Spaniard conquered the second Davis Cup title in front of a crowd of 25,000. It took a very high-level performance from Nadal to defeat World No.2 Andy Roddick.
Roddick recently spoke about the match after 16 years while watching it on the ITF Youtube channel. He said, ”it’s evidence of winning against Nadal and the confidence of 11 years old against 19 major crowns.” as quoted by TennisWorldUSA.
Speaking about Rafael Nadal, Roddick said “Proof that I won a set against Rafael Nadal on clay. He was 11 years old at the time, and there wasn’t much else to celebrate over the next 3 sets, but those seem like unimportant details from where I sit.”
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”If anything, I just gave him the confidence to win 19 majors” – Andy further explained.
“Rafa Nadal is one of the most accomplished athletes on earth…the humility…he looks the same throughout the year,” Roddick added.
Talking about the Nadal, Roddick further said, ”Going into the US Open with very few hardcourt matches, Rafa feels comfortable about it. I think that he used to feel the desperation to take reps on surfaces that weren’t clay and now he is comfortable enough at the ripe old age of 34 to kind of go and trust the process.”
He is going to have to grind through the first couple of rounds to gain form. But then once he does that, he is a legitimate contender at any Slam” the former World No.1 concluded.
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