Patrick McEnroe believes Nadal wildly should be seeded 1 or 2 for French Open despite being outside top 10

ATP
Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 23:30
nadal rg final
Patrick McEnroe believes that Nadal should be a top seed at Roland Garros due to his long history of being dominant at the French Open.
Nadal has been the most dominant tennis player in Roland Garros history but this year he might find himself in uncharted waters. He certainly won't be a top seed as he's not ranked in the top 10 anymore. It's a problem because he might see some good players pretty early on and that is not ideal with the little prep he had:
"He's dropped down to like 15 in the rankings. That will be another interesting thing. The French Federation who makes the draws and the seedings, they've always gone by the rules, the rankings. When Rafa faced Djoker in the quarters, I didn't like that but they're not going to change."
As he noted above, McEnroe wasn't a fan of Djokovic and Nadal playing in the quarters and that could be avoided if they both were top seeds (number one and two):
"If they didn't change last year, I can't imagine that they're going to put Rafa as the one or two seed, which I personally think they should, at least top 4, because now, unless he goes on some run in these clay-court tournaments, which is looking unlikely based on how many he's going to play, he's going to be well outside the top 10 come time for the Roland Garros. So that is the biggest question mark that we all want to have an answer for."
He also spoke about Nadal playing at the event at all:
"The question about Rafa is much dodgier. We don't know if he's gonna be ready. We've seen some video of him practicing. Normally he likes to play a lot on clay to get himself ready. He's the kind of guy that needs matches but does he really need that many matches at this point in his career? If he's physically fit, that's the number one thing for him, because he can play his way into the French (Open). In the first couple of rounds, he usually steamrolls people. That gets him court time, that gets him out there for a couple of hours at a stretch."

Just In

Popular News