Simply over a month in the past, Richard Gasquet performed his final profession match on the Paris Rolex Masters, crushed by Zizou Bergs. Again then, in a press convention, he was requested a query about his legendary former rival Rafael Nadal, who would quickly retire on the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga.
“What’s so special about him? I would answer: look at him! You look at a photo, you see everything immediately. 14 times Roland Garros. Even if you tried to imagine the number, even if it’s science fiction, you would never say he did it. When you said that, you said it all.
14 times he won Roland Garros. Need more? Playing a tournament so many times is not easy, winning it is not even worth talking about. Simply incredible. It was crazy, the intensity, the game, the physicality. How did he do it? We saw what level of game he had,” he mentioned.
Nadal and Gasquet© Instagram Richard Gasquet
The Frenchman will retire on the subsequent French Open 2025 however within the meantime, in some statements launched on the Tremendous Moscato Present of RMC, Gasquet admitted to having few regrets in his profession. Considered one of these is rarely having crushed Nadal in his profession. As is understood, the Frenchman has by no means crushed him 22 occasions in his profession and has misplaced to him in 18 official matches out of 18.
“I misplaced 18 occasions towards him, it’s horrible. I received’t promote you a false deception by telling you that it’s a pleasure. For me it’s an enormous remorse to not have crushed him. Now he’s gone, so I received’t beat him once more. I’ve recognized him since I used to be younger and I wasn’t significantly afraid.
I beat him once I was 13. I believed I might beat him in Monaco in 2005, shedding 6-7, 6-4, 6-3. After that I struggled, he improved, there’s little doubt about it. It grew to become troublesome. While you’re an athlete and also you’ve by no means crushed an opponent, it hurts,” he added.
