By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday October 11, 2024
You may inform quite a bit a few tennis participant simply by listening to them discuss different gamers. As we speak in Wuhan, we discovered a bit extra about American Coco Gauff. She gave reporters her ideas on Rafael Nadal’s retirement, and by doing so, revealed extra about what she values most in different folks.
“He’s my favourite particular person to observe apply, truthfully,” Gauff stated of the 22-time main champion. “The depth that he introduced on the apply courtroom and clearly on the match courtroom is one thing that I felt like watching is unmatched.”
It’s attention-grabbing that Gauff highlights Nadal’s apply periods, moderately than his matches. Nadal was all the time a participant that performed in his enterprise in probably the most skilled method, and Gauff has taken discover of the Spaniard’s legendary penchant for by no means taking some extent off – whether or not on the apply courtroom or the match courtroom.
She says she’s having a tough time – like so many people – accepting that Nadal’s profession might be formally over in November. “Watching [Nadal’s retirement] video, [I was] a bit emotional as a result of Rafa is all I’ve recognized rising up. Fairly certain he is received Roland Garros for like the vast majority of my life.
“I suppose it is one thing that is unlucky. It will occur to all people sooner or later. Hopefully it was fully on his phrases. I do know perhaps this yr he did not have as many injury-free moments as he wished to.”
Gauff highlighted the issues that Nadal does off the courtroom as she paid tribute to the King of Clay for the way in which he handled others.
Coco Gauff on Rafa: “He’s my favourite particular person to observe apply truthfully. The depth that he introduced on the apply courtroom and clearly on the match courtroom is one thing that I felt like watching is unmatched.”
— TennisNow (@Tennis_Now) October 11, 2024
“Total, the profession he had is one thing that gamers and folks dream of,” she stated. “Off the courtroom he was all the time talking to me, all the time saying congratulations to me every time I did effectively. It is one thing that could be very uncommon once you come throughout high gamers, particularly once they’re not on the ladies’s aspect, perhaps on the lads’s aspect. I do not know, I simply felt issues he would do, he went out of his method.”
Gauff will always remember the time that Nadal congratulated her after she had reached her maiden Roland-Garros last in 2022. She methods it was a second that may all the time stick together with her, as will the time that she commerce Olympic pins with the legend in Paris this summer season.
“I keep in mind at one level he stated congratulations to me the yr I went to the finals of the French Open,” she stated. “I form of did a double take as a result of I could not imagine he was talking to me.”
Gauff says that she’ll be telling the story of buying and selling with Nadal on the Olympics for a few years to return. Her anecdote is one other window into Nadal’s humanity. Although an icon and a worldwide superstar, the Spaniard by no means noticed himself as one thing particular, and all the time made time to share with folks round him.
Whether or not or not it’s Gauff, a fan, or the women and men that work behind the scenes as volunteers on the tournaments he performed, he handled all of them with dignity.
“We traded pins on the Olympics, which is the one factor I wished to do,” she stated. “He was tremendous good with that. We had been each ready on the shuttle. It was the final shuttle of the day, like 11 p.m. I requested him if I may have one in every of his pins. He gave me one. Carlos [Moya] was there, too, however Carlos did not have any pins. I solely took the image with Rafa there. I used to be like, ‘Carlos, you possibly can’t be in it since you did not give me a pin.’
“Yeah, simply one thing like that I will keep in mind. And one thing I will undoubtedly inform my youngsters as a result of it meant quite a bit to me.”
