{"id":491027,"date":"2025-10-11T12:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T12:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491027\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T12:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T12:59:16","slug":"novak-djokovic-reveals-why-hell-never-be-friends-with-rafael-nadal-despite-having-great-respect-for-fierce-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491027\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic reveals why he’ll never be friends with Rafael Nadal – despite having ‘great respect’ for fierce rival"},"content":{"rendered":"

By BEN WILLCOCKS, ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published: 07:12 EDT, 11 October 2025 | Updated: 08:22 EDT, 11 October 2025 <\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic<\/a> has explained why he will never be friends with fellow tennis great Rafael Nadal<\/a>, despite admitting there is ‘great respect’ between them.<\/p>\n

Djokovic, 38, is the most decorated men’s tennis player of all time with a sensational 24 Grand Slams to his name\u00a0\u2014 and would have chalked up plenty more were it not for the success of on-court rivals Nadal and Roger Federer<\/a>, who boast 42 between them.<\/p>\n

Despite two-thirds of the iconic tennis trio having already retired, Djokovic is still going strong as the world No 5 in a sport which is now dominated by Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Serb has revealed why he has never managed to forge a good friendship with Nadal, 39, even after the Spaniard’s retirement, insisting that their status as fierce rivals on the court made it ‘impossible’.<\/p>\n

‘Nadal is only a year older than me, we are both Geminis, at first we even went to dinner together, twice. But even with him, friendship is impossible,’ he told Corriere Della Sera<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘I have always respected and greatly admired him. Thanks to him and Federer, I grew up and became who I am. This will unite us forever; therefore I feel gratitude towards them. Nadal is a part of my life, in the last fifteen years I’ve seen more of him than my mum!<\/p>\n

‘We have never been friends. Between rivals, it is not possible, but we have never been enemies.<\/p>\n

\"Novak <\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic (left) has explained why he will never be friends with Rafael Nadal (right)<\/p>\n

\"He <\/p>\n

He says it was impossible to be friends with Nadal and Roger Federer (left) as they were rivals<\/p>\n

\"Djokovic <\/p>\n

Djokovic crashed out of the Shanghai Masters with a semi-final defeat by Valentin Vacherot<\/p>\n

\"He <\/p>\n

He was struggling with injury significantly and needed aid from the physio during the first set<\/p>\n

\u00a0‘I’ve always had respect for Federer, he was one of the greatest of all time. He had an extraordinary impact, but I’ve never been close to him.’<\/p>\n

Djokovic suffered a disappointing exit from the Shanghai Masters on Saturday after losing his semi-final against Valentin Vacherot while struggling with a back injury.<\/p>\n

The tennis legend thrashed a ball away in frustration midway through the first set, irked by the pain he was feeling in his lower back.<\/p>\n

He was treated by the physio and subsequently lost the first set 6-3, before crashing out in straight sets with a 6-4 defeat in the second.<\/p>\n

Upon winning the match, Vacherot refused to celebrate in excess \u2014 clearly aware of the injury Djokovic was forced to play with.<\/p>\n

After they enjoyed a touching moment at the net, Vacherot spoke in disbelief at how he had just managed to topple the titan.<\/p>\n

‘I can’t put any words to it,’ he told Sky Sports. ‘This is crazy. just to be on the other side of the net was an unbelievable experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I have learnt so much from this match. He is really appreciated here and almost got lost in all the titles he had won when they were announcing him.’<\/p>\n

Share or comment on this article:
\n Novak Djokovic reveals why he’ll never be friends with Rafael Nadal – despite having ‘great respect’ for fierce rival<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By BEN WILLCOCKS, ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR Published: 07:12 EDT, 11 October 2025 | Updated: 08:22 EDT, 11 October…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[6359,92,4718,4295,4296,13325,93,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-491027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-jannik-sinner","11":"tag-novak-djokovic","12":"tag-rafael-nadal","13":"tag-roger-federer","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tennis","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115355660333838725","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}