Guest of the Super Moscato Show on RMC this Monday, Richard Gasquet returned to the difficulties he experienced when he faced Rafael Nadal, whom he has never beaten in 18 confrontations.
Rafael Nadal and Richard Gasquet have one thing in common: they announced on the same day that they were retiring from Tennis. If the Spaniard is now a retired player since the end of the Davis Cup in Malaga, the Biterrois extends the pleasure until Roland-Garros, where he obtained a wild card from the French Tennis Federation.
Before beginning the last six months of his career and leaving for Australia to prepare for the Australian Open, where he will compete in the qualifiers, the 39-year-old returned to Nadal's retirement, which he rubbed shoulders since the youth categories. “It's weird to see him leave. It's not a part of me that's leaving but it's weird to see him leave, like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga two years ago. It's my generation that's leaving, it's okay soon to be my case,” he confided in the Super Moscato Show this Monday on RMC.
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18-0 in face-offs
Rafael Nadal is the only player that Richard Gasquet has never beaten, whether on hard court and especially on clay, the surface which revealed the Bull of Manacor. The latter displays a scathing record of 18-0 in confrontations against the French. “I lost 18 times to him, it's horrible. I'm not going to sell you a fake thing by telling you that it's a pleasure. It's a huge regret for me not to have beaten him. There he left so I won't beat him again. I knew him from a young age, I wasn't particularly afraid. I beat him at 13 (during the Little Aces tournament, editor's note). (in 2005, defeat 6-7, 6-4, 6-3). Afterwards I had difficulty, he progressed, there is no doubt. It became difficult. You've never beaten a guy, it hurts.”
The last three confrontations between the two men took place in Grand Slams, for three identical results, losses in three sets for Gasquet, in the 3rd round of Roland-Garros in 2018 (6-3, 6-2, 6 -2), in the 2nd round, still in Paris, in 2021 (6-0, 7-5, 6-2) and in the 3rd round of the US Open in 2022 (6-0, 6-1, 7-5).
AS with the Super Moscato Show
