“Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer were better than me,” Rafael Nadal CONFESSES that he isn’t the best player on Hard surface
Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal for the first time in his career is playing a grand slam with no Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Nadal on Friday progressed into the fourth-round of the Australian Open 2022.
After winning his thrid-round match, during the press conference nadal was asked a question about his performance on hard courts. To which the former world No.1 replied by saying, “Ofcourse I was not the best player on hard. because on lots of moments in my career probably novak and roger had been better than me on this surface.”
Rafael Nadal calls Novak and Federer better hard court player
Rafael Nadal won his third round match at the Australian Open 2022 and will now be facing the french Adrian Mannarino in his fourth-round match. The Spaniard is making his return after not being able to compete at the Tokyo Olympics and the US Open due to a foot injury.
However, this time around two-thirds of the BIG three aren’t present at the Australian Open. The BIG three have been the most talked about topic in tennis for the last decade and the absence of Federer and Novak from action is taking a lot of fans away from the Australian Open.
Nadal is the only player from the big three who is competing at the Australian Open 2022 and is looking in pretty good form especially considering that he is returning form an injury. The Spaniard also got diagnosed with Covid this Christmas and still made his way straight to the Australian Open after his recovery. He has played three matches and has won all three of them, he has looked in red-hot form and is certainly a prospect for lifting the Australian Open title this year.
However, after his third-round win during the post-match press conference the Spaniard was asked about his performance on the hard court. To which Nadal replied by saying, “I think during my career I have been improving on all the kinds of surfaces and that was always my goal, to be better players in general terms. On hard.. I don’t know during the years I had to adapt my game to it because i had a lot of physical problems so i needed to find a way to be competitive and to play sometimes more aggressive because i was not able to move that fast in the beginning.”
Nadal continued, “But I think I improved my serve, I improved my return, my position on court and little bit understanding. I think i played well on hard, I think I have been improving but I played well on hard since the beginning of my career, the first year that I started to have success in the tour was 2005 and i was able to win three tournaments on hard Montreal, Madrid and Bejieng I think so.”
However, in the Nadal added, “Of Course! I was not the BEST PLAYER on hard, because for a lot of moments in my career probably Roger and Novak had been a bit better than me on this surface without a doubt. But I was able to compete well during all these years and was able to win a couple of important tournaments”
Parth Dubey
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