‘Rafael Nadal? Or Novak Djokovic?’ – Andy Murray gives his thoughts on who is mentally stronger out of the two
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Andy Murray, recently spoke regarding the topic of mental strength while appearing on Gael Monfils’ Twitch channel. The two time Olympic gold medalist believed that Rafael Nadal was consistently the mentally stronger player between him and Djokovic, even if the Serbian’s peak was much higher. Andy Murray has played enough against the two greats of the game, to gauge the level of mental toughness they possess.
Andy Murray first began by pointing to the fact the Novak Djokovic had mentally outshone Rafael Nadal in few stages of his career. He even pointed out to that fact in an Instagram conversation with the Serbian, earlier this year. “I actually had this conversation with Novak, I did an Instagram live with him during the first sort of lockdown that we had due to the coronavirus and I said to him that for me like there’s been times during his career when I would pick him ahead of Rafa on the mental part,” Murray said. However, he went on to say that the Serbian does suffer big lapses of concentration at times.
Rafael Nadal has a great mentality and a great attitude: Murray on why absence of fans does not hurt Nadal
Andy Murray revealed later in the conversation with Monfils, that Novak Djokovic has suffered big lapses of concentration in his career at times, whereas Nadal was always mentally strong. This was evident in the Serbian’s quarterfinal loss at Vienna to Lorenzo Sonego, where he was outplayed by the Italian. He could not maintain his composure and lost the match.
“If I look at a career as a whole of every single match in every single tournament in their career then I would say you know like this week we were talking about where Novak was mentally (affected), how he was feeling, that wasn’t something we were concerned about with Rafa,” Murray explained. “And that’s something that I’ve never really been concerned about with him like I never think that’s gonna be a problem for him like motivation or mental side of things. So that’s why just as a whole for his career, I’ve got to take Rafa I think (as the mentally stronger player),” Murray added.
Andy Murray also spoke about how the absence of fans has not affected Rafael Nadal, and said that the Spaniard’s passion and attitude to the game, makes up for the absence of fans. Many players have suffered, and are not being able to adapt, in the stadiums without fans, but Murray pointed out to the fact that Nadal was not one of them.
“For someone like Rafael Nadal, I don’t think that crowd affects him that much,” Murray said. “Because I think he has got such a great mentality, his energy, and his stuff on the court is always really really good. He has got a great attitude. As we saw in this year at the French Open this year, there was no crowd but he still dominated,” Murray added.
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Nirmit Mehta
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