Not easy for Spain to have top players after Rafael Nadal retirement - Melo
In an interview to Brazil El Pais, the doubles player Marcelo Melo commented on the Gustavo Kuerten's legacy in Brazil and the very few top tennis players from the country who came up after him. "I played doubles with him once in a Challenger, and against him in the 2007 US Open (Kuerten was playing alongside Robby Ginepri, Melo paired up with Andre Sa. The two Brazilians won in straight sets). It was strange to play with him because he was an idol, but I had known him for a long time", said Kuerten.
Since Kuerten's days, only Thomaz Bellucci cracked the top 20 rankings among the Brazilians. Why? "Tennis is a very complicated sport. Guga was the exception. To become world No. 1 like he was... Countries like the United States and Spain try to make another high-level player come up and they do not succeed to do it. Spain has an enormous amount of players, much bigger than Brazil, and almost only Rafael Nadal was No. 1. Hopefully, other guys come but it's not easy. That shows how big and important Guga was for professional tennis. Now a series of good players is about to come and hopefully, results will be there, but without looking at being No. 1 or champions. We need to start from the most little countries."
On his split with Bruno Soares, he concluded: "Back in the day Bruno was looking for another partner because he thought that with another partner he would get better results. That's why we played for just two years. For me, at the time partnership would have continued. But you have to know that at one point it happens and it did not influence our relationship. It was good for both, we had impressive results after. But we can still play together in Davis Cup and Olympics."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2YekaIL
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