Rafael Nadal is not anticipating an easy victory over Novak Djokovic at French Open – Tennis News
Ranked at number two in the world, Rafael Nadal is not expecting a straight sets win over world number one, Novak Djokovic of Serbia, at this year’s French Open.
The Spaniard has lost seven consecutive matches against Djokovic and all of them being title matches.
Nadal replied, when he was asked if he thinks he could thrash the Serbian at Roland Garros, “I don’t expect winning straight sets in the third round, so I not gonna expect a win against Djokovic in three sets, especially when he
beat me in, I don’t know, seven times in a row. That’s the real thing today.”
It started at last year’s BNP Paribas Open, when Djokovic came back from a deficit of one set to outlast the Spaniard. The Serbian repeated the feat two weeks later, bouncing back from one set down to beat Nadal in the Sony Ericsson
Open final.
These two losses of Nadal were on hard courts but Djokovic surprised all the tennis fans grabbed back-to-back victories over the then world number one, Nadal, on clay courts. The Spaniard, who is known as the ‘King of Clay’ was
jolted in the final of Mutua Madrid Open and Internazionali BNL d’Italia.
If this was not enough, thanks to Djokovic, the Spaniard became the only player to have lost three straight Grand Slam finals at the hands of the same player.
The Serbian removed Nadal from the top of rankings after defeating him in the Wimbledon final. The 24-year-old hit another blow when he deprived the Spaniard from defending his US Open title. In the longest Grand Slam final in
the history of tennis, Djokovic stunned Nadal to win his seventh Major at the Australian Open.
One can assume Nadal was lucky that the Serbian was ousted by Swiss Maestro, Roger Federer, in the French Open semi-finals last year. Else, there were chances that Djokovic would have denied the Spaniard of his Roland Garros title
too.
When asked if he is working hard to solve the Djokovic riddle, Nadal said, “I say it always the same, I want to improve for me. I don`t want to improve to beat Novak, to beat Roger (Federer) or to beat nobody. I try my best every
day to improve my level of tennis, to be a better player year by year. And if that`s enough to beat Novak, fantastic. If not, I`m gonna keep working.”
The Spaniard still leads 16-14 in the head to head record against Djokovic.
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