Nadal sits awkwardly by Medvedev as he waxes lyrical about Djokovic

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Rafael Nadal was forced to sit next to Daniil Medvedev as the world No 5 lauded Novak Djokovic for surpassing the Spaniard and Roger Federer’s records ahead of the ATP Finals. The eight players competing in the season-ending championships took part in a joint interview which left Nadal awkwardly listening in as Medvedev praised his rival.

Nadal and Djokovic are both playing at this week’s ATP Finals and are the oldest men in the draw, as well as the only Grand Slam champions from this season after Carlos Alcaraz was forced to withdraw. The tournament sees the eight men who won the most ranking points this year alone battle it out in round-robin matches to reach the semi-finals and final.

The two multi-Grand Slam champions have each won four titles this year and continued to make history with Nadal becoming the first man to win his 21st and 22nd Grand Slam titles while the Serb extended his record of Masters 1000 titles, and fellow ATP Finals rival Medvedev has now praised the world No 8 for coming onto the tour and surpassing Federer and Nadal while the 36-year-old sat next to him.

“I already felt that Roger, Rafa, Novak, they’re just the best tennis players of all time,” the 2020 ATP Finals champion said during a joint interview with Nadal, Djokovic and the rest of the field. And Medvedev made a brutal admission as he claimed he was told the Spaniard’s career was “over” before Nadal went on to win the first two Majors of the year.

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He continued: “And people around me were like, yeah, Rafa is finished. You know, he’s injured. I’m sure you heard it many times. Rafa proved so many times that it’s not like this.” The 15-time title winner then turned his attention to Djokovic as he explained how impressive it was for the Serb to break onto the scene after ‘Fedal’ and surpass them for records including weeks at No 1.

About Novak, when he just came on the tour everybody was like yeah this young guy, you know, he’s not going to achieve much compared to Roger and Rafa,” Medvedev said of the 90-time title winner.

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“And he proved everybody wrong and so that’s what I admire and that’s why they’re the best champions that ever existed.” Medvedev will have to come up against Djokovic this week as both men have been drawn in the Red Group alongside Andrey Rublev the only other former champion in the draw, Stefanos Tsitsipas.

They will only be able to face Nadal if they all make it out of the group stage into the semi-finals and finals, where there will be a chance of playing those who are in the Green Group which also includes Casper Ruud and ATP Finals debutants Taylor Fritz and Felix Auger-Aliassime.

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