Sergi Bruguera "glad" to have never faced Nadal, claims to have "made a lot of jokes" about his win over Federer
Sergi Bruguera, the captain of the Spanish Davis Cup team and two-time Roland Garros champion, recently spoke about how he is glad to have never faced Rafael Nadal at the claycourt Major.
The Spaniard admitted that it was always his biggest goal to win Roland Garros, and although he imagines he might have beaten Nadal, he's relieved to have never come up against him.
"I imagine that sometime I would have beaten him (Rafael Nadal), but I am convinced that he would almost always beat me," Bruguera told Punto De Break. "My obsession was always winning Roland Garros and I was lucky to win it twice, also beating very strong players along the way like Courier or Medvedev.
"Rafael Nadal is the best clay court player in history, a long way from the next one, so on that side I'm glad I didn't find him in my time," he added.
Rafael Nadal has won the French Open a record 13 times. The Spaniard has a win-loss record of 105-3 in Paris, with two defeats at the hands of Novak Djokovic (2015 quarterfinals, 2021 semifinals) and one against Robin Soderling (2009 fourth round).
Rafael Nadal’s French Open 2020 win made Nadal the only player in history to have 3 streaks of 4 consecutive titles at a grand slam event (Borg and Federer each had 2 streaks), as well as 3 streaks of 30+ consecutive match wins at the same event. https://t.co/rYyhlE2CHC
Bruguera said that Nadal is indisputably the best men's Spanish tennis player ever, and that he would put himself in the top 5.
"I would put myself top 5 for sure, although there have been a lot," he said. "Rafa is the undisputed number 1, then Santana would come, then there are spectacular players like Orantes, Gimeno, Moyá and Ferrero."
"If he manages to stay in good health, he could win one to three more @rolandgarros. This is a reasonable argument. It is much more complicated to think that he can still win another Grand Slam tournament than the French."
Patrick Mc Enroe on Rafael Nadal https://t.co/dh1gl3NrVe
Sergi Bruguera shares funny anecdote about Roger Federer
During the interview, Bruguera also spoke about an incident with Rafael Nadal's long-term rival Roger Federer. The Spaniard won his only meeting with the 40-year-old by a scoreline of 6-1, 6-1 on the clay of Barcelona back in 2000 when the Swiss was just 19.
Bruguera recalled meeting Federer much after the result while training with Richard Gasquet, and joking about how the Swiss forgot the scoreline of his loss against him.
"We have made a lot of jokes about it, even an anecdote with him," Bruguera recounted. "I was working with Gasquet and he knew that I had beaten him 6-1 and 6-1. One day we met Federer and he said: 'Roger, here's someone who beat you up in his day.' And there he replied: 'Yes, yes, I remember, I thought I was going to beat him easily that day because he came from an injury, but he beat me 6-2 and 6-1'.
"So he made it easy for me to say: 'No Roger, it was 6-1 and 6-1, don't play too many games' (laughs)," he added.