Tim Henman explains why he felt Rafael Nadal would not make it after playing Spaniard early in his career

While 22-time grand slam winner Rafael Nadal became the latest one among the ‘Big three’ in tennis to retire with his retirement from tennis last year, it was the Spaniard who had impressed former British player Tim Henman the least in his early playing days. Henman, who retired in 2007, played against Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in his career, shared how Nadal would make makes early in his career and he did not see him going far.
“I practised with Nadal, and I’d never seen anyone hit the ball that hard. But every third shot was in the back fence, and I just didn’t honestly believe that you could play like that because you’d make makes. He didn’t hit the ball quite as hard in matches, but after I’d lost the practice set 6-1, I thought maybe it would work,” former world number one Tim Henman told Mirror Sport.
Henman had faced Nadal twice in his professional career and had lost both the matches. The six-time Grand Slam semi-final lost against Djokovic twice in his career having never won against the Serbian. Henman faced Federer in 13 matches in his career and won in six matches with only one win out of those six wins coming after Federer had won his first Grand Slam title. While Djokovic won his 24th grand slam title in the form of the US Open last year, Nadal finished his career with 22 grand slam titles and Federer finished his career with 20 grand slam titles. Henman recalled thinking that Pete Sampras’s mark of 14 Grand Slam titles would never be broken before Federer broke the record with the French Open win in 2009.
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“I think if I was to wind the clock back to when I was first aware of each of them, I would have said yeah they’re very very good players. Can they win a slam? Yeah I think they can win a slam. But beyond that, absolutely not. To win 66 between them is just difficult to comprehend. I think when [Pete] Sampras was playing in my era and he got to 14, I would have bet my bottom dollar that no one was going to go past that. To see three of them do it is incredible,” said Henman.
Djokovic had missed winning his 25th grand slam title after he pulled out of the Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev last month. The Serbian had faced backlash from fans after the match and Henman had shown his support for the Serbian. “For someone who is going for their 11th Australian Open title, their 25th slam, to pull out after a set, he’s obviously in a bad way. For him to be booed in that moment is pretty indefensible. However, I’m not on social media, but what I hear goes on with him and his fans, it’s chaos isn’t it. And there have been times when he’s probably attracted to that. But he absolutely doesn’t deserve to be booed off court after he’s had to retire,” Henman had told Mirror Sport.