{"id":2601,"date":"2024-11-20T02:23:05","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T02:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=2601"},"modified":"2024-11-20T02:23:05","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T02:23:05","slug":"rafael-nadal-farewell-a-legacy-is-cast-in-gold-but-novak-djokovic-had-one-big-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=2601","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Nadal farewell: A legacy is cast in gold but Novak Djokovic had one big edge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Rafael<\/figure>\n

Conor Niland on Rafael Nadal<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal\u2019s sporting legacy will be cast in gold forever more, but one former player suggests there was one area where he could have made his presence felt.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nadal is calling time on his record-breaking career at the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga, with Ireland Davis Cup captain Conor Niland telling Tennis365 that the Spaniard deserves all the plaudits that will come his way.<\/p>\n

Yet he suggests the retiring legend may have done even more for tennis if he had spoken up for the game\u2019s lower-ranked players, as they were fighting to earn more prize money to fund their careers.<\/p>\n

Nadal\u2019s great rival Novak Djokovic has been a champion of lower-ranked players and has called for tennis chiefs to provide more money for players lower down the tennis ladder.<\/p>\n

Former world No 129 Niland, who wrote an acclaimed book on the struggles of life in the lower ranks of the tennis tour that won the\u00a02024 William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award,\u00a0has suggested Djokovic\u2019s passion to use his influence to change the sport for players not as fortunate as himself is a quality that was appreciated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have liked to have seen Nadal speak out a little bit more for some of the guys ranked between 100 and 300 players,\u201d said Niland. \u201cSometimes I felt with Rafa that if you were not at the top of the game he wasn\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy contrast, Djokovic has spoken up for players who are struggling to make their way on the tour financially, but Federer and Nadal haven\u2019t really done that.<\/p>\n

\u201cDjokovic seems to understand that it\u2019s lopsided and it needs a bit of work, so he deserves some credit for that, but he has divided opinion a lot more.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times, people didn\u2019t like him even when he was doing nothing wrong as he was disrupting the Federer and Nadal rivalry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it was the vaccine issue, the chaos in Australia when he was deported and at a time when everyone was really divided, he stoked the fire a little at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niland went on to suggest Nadal and his great rivals Roger Federer and Djokovic will also be seen as part of the same story, as their rivalry captivated the sporting world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see them as a trio and I don\u2019t think Djokovic could have done what he did without Federer and Nadal leading him off,\u201d said Niland, who played Djokovic in the 2011 US Open on Arthur Ashe Stadium court.<\/p>\n

\u201cNadal is one of the greatest sportsmen of the last 100 years, I would say, and certainly one of the most inspiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has been involved in some of the greatest matches ever played and we always look at the 2008 match against Federer as the greatest of all-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there were also some incredible matches like the epic against Fernando Verdasco at the Australian Open in 2009 and so many more amazing moments.<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal News<\/h3>\n

Rafael Nadal: 11 incredible records that may never be broken<\/p>\n

The 7 active ATP players with the most hard-court titles: Jannik Sinner moves joint-4th, Novak Djokovic top<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is right up there with one of the great tennis players of all-time and also one of the great sportsmen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always been on the right side of things and his behaviour on court has always been exemplary. The example he has set has been ridiculously good and tennis will miss him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been the odd time violation and getting a bit annoyed with umpires, but all pretty minor stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niland\u2019s acclaimed book looked at the struggles of players ranked outside the elite in the game and he suggests Nadal and Federer could have done more to fight for lower-ranked players to have the potential to earn more money in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have liked to have seen Nadal speak out a little bit more for some of the guys ranked between 100 and 300 players,\u201d said Niland. \u201cSometimes I felt with Rafa that if you were not at the top of the game he wasn\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy contrast, Djokovic has spoken up for players who are struggling to make their way on the tour financially, but Federer and Nadal haven\u2019t really done that.<\/p>\n

\u201cDjokovic seems to understand that it\u2019s lopsided and it needs a bit of work, so he deserves some credit for that, but he has divided opinion a lot more.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times, people didn\u2019t like him even when he was doing nothing wrong as he was disrupting the Federer and Nadal rivalry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it was the vaccine issue, the chaos in Australia when he was deported and at a time when everyone was really divided, he stoked the fire a little at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niland\u2019s autobiography has proved to be a huge hit after its was released earlier this year, as the former player who reached a career-high ranking of No.129 captured the imagination of fans outside of tennis with his compelling account of life on the tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was a good book, I knew it would be well received by people who like tennis,\u201d he added. \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I didn\u2019t know is whether people who didn\u2019t follow our sport would get something out of it. As it turns out, a lot of the most enthusiastic comments have come from people who were brought into the tennis world through this book.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose of us involved in tennis know it inside out and how it all works, but people who are involved in tennis got something out of that world being revealed to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niland\u2019s success in winning the 2024 William Hill Sports Book of the Year award was a remarkable achievement as a sparkling endorsement of a tennis story that has rarley been told.<\/p>\n

\u201cI accept this award with a lot of humility. The other shortlisted books are incredible stories so I feel very fortunate to have won and so grateful,\u201d said Niland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all pretty improbable. My brother told me I would win the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award when he read this last Christmas, I took that with a pretty large pinch of salt, but he was right. It\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pro tennis tour is a little bit of a misunderstood sport, we were able to show what the world is really like, for the guys a little bit further down the rankings.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Rafael Nadal farewell: Every word the Spanish legend said ahead of Davis Cup Finals<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rafael Nadal could have spoken up for lower-ranked players, claims Davis Cup captain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"yoast_head":"\nRafael Nadal farewell: A legacy is cast in gold but Novak Djokovic had one big edge - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=2601\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rafael Nadal farewell: A legacy is cast in gold but Novak Djokovic had one big edge - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rafael Nadal could have spoken up for lower-ranked players, claims Davis Cup captain.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=2601\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-11-20T02:23:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/3-52.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1320\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"742\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Admin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=2601\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=2601\",\"name\":\"Rafael Nadal farewell: A legacy is cast in gold but Novak Djokovic had one big edge - 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