‘Never say never’ – Nadal refuses to rule out future coaching role<\/p>\n
Video credit: SNTV<\/p>\n
Nadal<\/a> and Federer<\/a> enjoyed a long-standing competitive rivalry, with the former dominating on clay – winning 14 French Open<\/a> titles – and the latter excelling on grass, with a record eight Wimbledon<\/a> titles to his name.<\/p>\n While Federer earned countless admirers for his graceful style of play, Nadal was more often praised for his speed and tenacity.<\/p>\n “I was with Roger in London at the Laver Cup,” McEnroe said in an interview on Spanish talk show ‘La Revuelta’<\/a>. “I sat next to him, we talked. He’s the best, the classiest guy you could meet. He’s the most beautiful player I’ve ever watched play tennis.<\/p>\n “Rafa Nadal is the best effort player I’ve ever seen; I’ve never seen a person try as hard as he did every single point. That’s the best quality you can ask for in an athlete.”<\/p>\n Nadal’s emergence in the early 2000s came during a relatively barren period for Spanish tennis, but Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Rafael Jodar have since followed in his footsteps.<\/p>\n “Nadal changed everything,” McEnroe said when asked about the health of the Spanish game. “Carlos Moya won one [Grand Slam, the French Open in 1998], but Rafa Nadal came on and changed Spanish tennis.<\/p>\n “I didn’t think this would happen. How does this happen? America hasn’t had a male win a major tournament in 23 years. Rafa himself won 22. And now Carlos has seven.”<\/p>\n Nadal retired in 2024 – two years after Federer – and recently commented on what his future might hold<\/a> after returning to the court at the Rafa Nadal Academy Slam in Mallorca earlier this month.<\/p>\n “To be a coach? Never say never,” he said. “In the end, I am here to give support to the boys and girls of the academy when they need it.<\/p>\n “I’m always open to being able to give a hand to whoever asks me to. But, I have two young children.<\/p>\n “I have many other things in my life today that occupy me on a daily basis, so I don’t think that my current life allows me to be or imagine being a coach in the way that it requires to be a good coach and dedicate yourself professionally to serving a professional player as they deserve.<\/p>\n “So it’s not in my head at all right now. I don’t know in five years from now what might happen.”<\/p>\n He added: “Grabbing the racquet will always be fun for me, but that’s another matter from closing the door on exhibitions – I’ll play them, but it’s a slow process.<\/p>\n “In the end, I finished my career with a lot of physical problems; the racquet reminds me of many of the pains I went through. I can live better than I expected, and for me, that’s very important after spending so many years living something else.” <\/p>\n Download the TNT Sports app on iPhone<\/a>\u00a0and Android.<\/a>The streaming home for TNT Sports in the UK is HBO Max<\/a>, where fans can enjoy a subscription that includes live sport and entertainment in one destination.Watch and stream top tennis action, including the Australian Open and French Open, live with TNT Sports on HBO Max<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Never say never’ – Nadal refuses to rule out future coaching role Video credit: SNTV Nadal and Federer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}