Tennis great clarifies Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal comments – ‘I never said they aren’t great players’
Jimmy Connors has dismissed suggestions that he belittled Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s greatness, saying it was a case of praising the “new guy on the top of the heap” with the new guy being Novak Djokovic.
Former world No 1 Connors recently discussed claims that Djokovic is starting to lose motivation and could call it quits on the back of Carlos Alcaraz’s rise and, more specifically, the Spaniard’s Wimbledon triumph.
During the Advantage Connors podcast, the eight-time Grand Slam winner all but labeled Djokovic the greatest player of all time as he said: “It comes to a point where a lot of people think he’s had enough. To me that’s bull***t. Look at all the people that were on the Federer bandwagon and the Nadal bandwagon as the greatest of all time. They’re not even the greatest of all time in their own era.
“They think that maybe he’s had enough and it’s time for somebody else to come up. I look at it the other way, I say, ‘Kill it.’ Stay out there and play until somebody just comes up and beats your brains out because you always got a chance to win.”
His statement did not down well with Federer and Nadal fans with many perceiving the comments as dismissing the duo’s greatness.
However, in a follow-up on Advantage Connors, the American explained that his intention was not to make light of Federer and Nadal’s achievements as he was simply following “rules” that suggest that greatest player of all time is the one with the most Grand Slams and that player is Djokovic.
“They’ve made the rules that the Grand Slams have become the important thing. You know, ‘he’s won this many Grand Slams and that’s why he’s the best’,” he said.
“For me, I go back to every day, every match, every tournament, every year, it seems that that changed in the past 15-20 years, where it’s all about Grand Slams and how many you win.
“I never said that Federer and Nadal aren’t the great players that they are, I just said that there’s a new guy on the top of the heap, that’s all. And he’s won the most Grand Slams at the moment.
“I was not saying that they are not great players and I’m not in the kiss-ass business anyway. I’m not going to say they are or if they’re not. They are and they’ve proven that and they’ve proven it for 15, 16, 17, whatever amount of years that they’ve been playing, with the amount of Grand Slams that they’ve won. I’m just saying that the rules were set on the importance of the Grand Slams. That’s all I’m saying.”
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