Richard Gasquet returned, in the pages of Midi Libre, to the announcement of his retirement, made official a few hours before that of Rafael Nadal, without which it would have almost gone unnoticed, swallowed up by the aura of the Majorcan.
Destiny linked, until the end. From this first match at the Petits As de Tarbes, a success which has not stopped haunting Richard Gasquet, he who rivaled the terror of Manacor among the young people, but who then no longer managed to beat him on the professional circuit , until this retirement announced the same day, 25 years later, the Frenchman and Rafael Nadal, born 15 days apart, never left each other. But on the finish line, it was the Sérignanais who ended up ahead of one of the greatest players in history (22 major coronations including 14 at Roland-Garros).
“The probability was low,” laughs Richard Gasquet, savoring this “quite nice wink”. As for many observers familiar with their journey, this “quite incredible coincidence” inevitably brought a smile to his face. “Yes, it made me smile, it was funny,” admits Richard Gasquet in the columns of Midi Libre. “Of course I wasn’t expecting it at all. But for me, it was a little earlier, in the morning. Fortunately, I beat it by a few hours. It was nice, that’s me who said it earlier.” Which did not prevent the Majorcan from overshadowing him, once again.
“It was brutal”
The Frenchman played for a long time in the same category among young people in terms of precocity, but the comparison no longer held up a few years later, in light of what the Mallorcan had already accomplished on the circuit.
There was indeed this duel held on the Rock, in Monte-Carlo, in 2005, but a few weeks later, Nadal won his first Grand Slam title at Roland-Garros, sweeping away the Frenchman, unable to sustain the cadence. From there, their respective careers would take polar opposite trajectories.
Richard Gasquet spoke at length on the subject in his autobiography “Richard Gasquet, against all odds”, the preface of which is signed…Rafael Nadal. Now that both players have announced the end of their careers, Gasquet remembers above all that he participated in “almost the most beautiful era of tennis”.
“Djokovic, Federer who was a little older, Nadal, who always played… It was brutal. That’s the least we can say. Afterwards, it was the golden age of tennis, he There were still huge players, it remains an incredible era (…) I was able to play all these players a lot of times. It’s crazy to have been able to play in this same era. It was difficult, the three Grand Slam semi-finals, I played against the three best players of all time, but that’s how it is and there’s something beautiful about that, too.”
Richard Gasquet has announced that he will say goodbye at the Roland-Garros tournament next year, where Nadal wrote the most beautiful pages of his legend and where he would undoubtedly have liked to close this chapter of his life , if his body had allowed it.
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