Roger Federer: 'I hope there will be many more matches with Rafael Nadal'
Roger Federer hopes that his rivalry with Rafael Nadal is not finished. Their 39th match ever against each other should have happened on Saturday in Indian Wells but the Spaniard retired due to a knee injury. Federer loved his clashes with Nadal over the years: "When he was coming up I was world No. 1 and he was 17 and he was cute at the time, not so much anymore now (Laughter). We’ve had so many epic battles and I know every match we have now could be our last. Was this our chance for the last one? I really hope not. I believe at the level he’s playing and that I’m still going at, there’s going to be more. But if we keep staying up high in the [ATP Rankings], it’s more of a challenge to get to each other in the draw as well so this one would have been even more epic, it's one of the most beautiful centre courts we have in the world and it would have been very special, so we would have liked to battle that out and we all know that Rafa would have given it all if he could have had. For me it's a special rivalry, maybe the most special one with Novak and Rafa, we have had so many epic ones that I hope we are gonna have many more to come."
Asked how he would spend the Saturday afternoon, maybe going to the practice court again or just resting, Federer replied: “I’ve hit so much the last few weeks that I’m happy to save my knees for my body, to be honest. I am feeling great, really ready to go, excited to play against Dominic Thiem, he is a great player, he is a wonderful guy as well, he played a fantastic match against Milos which I was able to watch a little bit, so it's all in preparation already, we don’t have much time off, so when you do get an afternoon off, you put your feet up, have a massage and spend some time with the family. It’s a big final for me, especially after the tough loss last year I would love to go all the way this year."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2uexVdM
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