Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic reveal what makes them admire each other as the two men continue to battle for the biggest honors
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Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic
Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are two of the biggest players active in tennis at the moment. The two have combined won 43 Grand Slam titles. The current Top-100 ranked players combined have not won over 10 majors. While they reign supreme at the top, none can deny the rivalry has been one of the best.
Nadal and Djokovic have met on the Tour on 59 occasions, the most between any pair in the Open Era. Djokovic leads the head-to-head 30-29 further, showing how close the two have been to each other as Nadal leads the Grand Slam race with his 22 majors to Djokovic’s 21.
As the two greats compete in the 2022 ATP Finals, the fans got to get a glimpse of the respect the two have for each other. As the players asked and answered the questions in front of each other, Nadal and Djokovic spoke about what makes them admire each other after all these years of battling out on the court.
“I think I have to say to Novak, he’s able to be super professional, to control his body, to hold the passion. It doesn’t matter how things are going, he always keeps going until the end and that’s something very difficult, especially in a super long career after all the success. To keep having the passion and the love for the game, I think it’s something I admire a lot,” said Nadal as per the ATP Tour site.
Djokovic added, “I am really privileged to have the rivalry that we had over the years. I think we respect each other a lot and we push each other to the limit and kind of motivate each other to go even higher. It’s great to be part of that era.”
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have met only once this year
While both Djokovic and Nadal have managed to win Grand Slam titles this year, the duo has clashed only once. Their meeting took place in the quarter-finals of the 2022 French Open where Nadal progressed with a 4-set win as he went on to lift his 14th French Open title and record-extending 22nd major.
After splitting the first two sets, Nadal won the third set. Djokovic had a big lead in the 4th set and it seemed almost certain that a 5th set would be played between the two. However, Nadal managed to bounce back brilliantly capitalizing on Djokovic’s surprising mistakes as the Serb squandered his lead and failed in his title defense.
Nadal and Djokovic are in separate groups at the ATP Finals. Their clash in the year-end championships this year looks a bit difficult as they can meet only in the knockouts now. However, with Nadal suffering a defeat in his first round-robin match, we might not get another Djokovic-Nadal clash this year on the Tour.
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Sarthak Shitole
(3462 Articles Published)