Roy Emerson: 'Tennis is Lucky to Have Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal'
Tennis - 82-year-old Roy Emerson says that tennis is lucky to have Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on the court as the two of them are great ambassadors for the game. In an interview to. the LA Times, Emerson says, “With Federer and Nadal, tennis is lucky. They are great talents and great ambassadors for the game. I’m glad young kids have them to emulate, on and off the court.”
Emerson is a 12-time Grand Slam champion in singles and 16 times in doubles and is one of only eight men to win a career Slam - that is all the four singles titles at least once in their career. Speaking about his best year in 1964, Emerson comments, "Everybody always said one of my best attributes was that I was always fit. That year, I really got fit. I went to India to train first, and I didn’t eat much of the food, so I was really fit. I think we lost the Cup in ’54 and so I was sent off to train hard and improve my game. We won again starting in ’55."
Speaking about his journey from Queensland, Australia to the top of the tennis world, Emerson says, “I grew up on a dairy farm a few miles outside Blackbutt, and went to school in nearby Nukku. Our farm had a tennis court. At our school a few miles away, we had another tennis court. Most of the farms had tennis courts in those days. We had 17 kids in our school, ages 5 to 14. I was a brilliant student. The last three years in my school, I was tops in my class. I was also the only one in my class.”
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2TEOdvP
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