Just over a month ago, Richard Gasquet played his last career match at the Paris Rolex Masters, beaten by Zizou Bergs. Back then, in a press conference, he was asked a question about his legendary former rival Rafael Nadal, who would soon retire at 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 said.
Nadal and Gasquet© Instagram Richard Gasquet
The Frenchman will retire at the next French Open 2025 but in the meantime, in some statements released at the Super Moscato Show of RMC, Gasquet admitted to having few regrets in his career. One of these is never having beaten Nadal in his career. As is known, the Frenchman has never beaten him 22 times in his career and has lost to him in 18 official matches out of 18.
“I lost 18 times against him, it’s horrible. I won’t sell you a false deception by telling you that it’s a pleasure. For me it’s a huge regret not to have beaten him. Now he’s gone, so I won’t beat him again. I’ve known him since I was young and I wasn’t particularly afraid.
I beat him when I was 13. I thought I could beat him in Monaco in 2005, losing 6-7, 6-4, 6-3. After that I struggled, he improved, there’s no doubt about it. It became difficult. When you’re an athlete and you’ve never beaten an opponent, it hurts,” he added.
Tennis World USA