Juan Martin del Potro spoke about Rafael Nadal recently, paying tribute to the Spaniard for his unique passion for competing.
The list of players who were inspired by Nadal is long, and the list of players who admire him is even longer. One of them is former ATP player Del Potro, who battled the Spaniard more than once and often gave him trouble when they played.
Del Potro beat Nadal six times in the 17 matches they played, which is a better mark than most players have, iconic or not. All those matches gave him a chance to really get to know Nadal’s competitive spirit.
It raised his own level because he needed to match his tremendous competitive spirit to beat him. Most fail at that, and that’s why the former Argentinian player explained it as unique and unmatched in a recent interview at the 2024 Madrid Open.
“Nadal is giving himself the pleasure of retiring in his own way and under his conditions. And it is something that unfortunately I couldn’t do because of my health.”
“Seeing him play and seeing that passion for competing and that energy he has is something unique and I don’t know if there will be something similar in the coming years.”
It’s never good to predict that something will never happen again because the universe finds a way to prove us wrong. We don’t know whether we’ll see a player similar to Nadal in the future, but there have always been tremendous competitors who love to compete.
Some of these young guys we have now certainly have a ton of competitiveness within them, and we’ll see in the coming years whether they get to a comparable level. For now, it’s good to have Nadal around because it’s pretty clear that it won’t last forever. It might not even last until next year.
