{"id":594255,"date":"2025-11-26T04:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/594255\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T04:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:31:12","slug":"i-played-against-djokovic-federer-and-nadal-one-of-them-stood-out-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/594255\/","title":{"rendered":"I played against Djokovic, Federer and Nadal &#8211; one of them stood out | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marcos Baghdatis has named <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" title=\"Novak Djokovic\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/novak-djokovic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Novak Djokovic<\/a> as the toughest opponent from his 16-year professional tennis career. The 24-time Grand Slam champion won all eight of their matches between 2007 and 2015, the second of which was a five-hour-long <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" class=\"auto-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/wimbledon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wimbledon<\/a> quarter-final.<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic is the best player Baghdatis never beat, having recorded wins over <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" class=\"auto-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/rafael-nadal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rafael Nadal<\/a> and <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" class=\"auto-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/roger-federer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Roger Federer<\/a> in 2010, the only person to beat both while they were World No 1. That is why the 40-year-old gives the current <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" title=\"Olympic Games 2024\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/olympic-games\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Olympic<\/a> champion an edge over the other two in the &#8220;Big Three&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Baghdatis told <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-features\/marcos-baghdatis-toughest-opponent-novak-djokovic-rafael-nadal-roger-federer-exclusive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tennis365<\/a>: &#8220;I would pick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/novak-djokovic\" data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|AutoLink\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Novak Djokovic<\/a>, just because of the reason that I never beat him, but it&#8217;s very hard to pick.&#8221; He also mentioned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/andy-murray\" data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|AutoLink\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Andy Murray<\/a> as one of the top four before naming David Ferrer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Juan Martin del Potro, Marin Cilic, Stan Wawrinka and Tomas Berdych as other very high-level opponents around at the time he played.<\/p>\n<p>On Djokovic, Baghdatis added: &#8220;I think, whenever I played Novak, [they were] pretty close matches. That&#8217;s my thinking; maybe I&#8217;m wrong, but that&#8217;s what I remember.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I think I once got a nice beating out of him, and it was in Indian Wells. It was a 6-1, 6-2.&#8221; That match ten years ago actually finished 6-1, 6-3 and was the last time they played each other.<\/p>\n<p>Baghdatis continued: &#8220;I came off the court, and I felt the guy gave me a lesson, and I never felt like that with another player. I never felt like that with Roger or with Rafa.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To be the first to receive the latest tennis news, join our<a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/chat.whatsapp.com\/LXhZ3nwDOA770jUOWfNb6m\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> WhatsApp community<\/a> or<a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/newsletter-preference-centre\/?mailingListId=5c406a57-84cd-456c-93d3-36201de20d6d&amp;view=Solus&amp;utm_source=article_link=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> tennis newsletter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even when I was younger, and I played Roger, I always felt like, &#8216;next time I can beat him&#8217;. I always felt that. But with Novak it was\u2026 I didn&#8217;t have that feeling, especially after that match.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcos Baghdatis has named Novak Djokovic as the toughest opponent from his 16-year professional tennis career. The 24-time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[186897,4295,4296,13325,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-594255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-marcos-baghdatis","9":"tag-novak-djokovic","10":"tag-rafael-nadal","11":"tag-roger-federer","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115614127894639459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594255","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=594255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}