Djokovic on Nadal's retirement ceremony: "I feel bad that I wasn't there".

Clément Gehl

le 14/01/2025 à 13h41

1 min to read

Djokovic Nadal

Novak Djokovic is of course in Melbourne for the Australian Open, where he faces Jaime Faria in the second round this Wednesday.

In a press conference, he was asked about Rafael Nadal's retirement ceremony at the Davis Cup in Malaga in November.

He said: "If you ask me, the ceremony wasn't done properly.

I don't know the exact details of the ceremony, but I do know that the plan was to do it after the semi-finals, if Spain qualified.

Murray and I had planned to be there, we hadn't been able to fit the quarter-finals into our schedule, but we were sure we'd be there for the semi-final.

Unfortunately, that's the way it turned out, so what can you do?

I saw the video (of the ceremony). I don't know, I don't know if Rafa didn't want to make too much fuss so as not to disturb the other teams, the matches... I don't know, to be honest, but I feel bad not to have been there.

The ceremony, if you ask me, wasn't well done. Maybe Rafa himself wasn't sure if he could play or not, if he could still play, and maybe it was too late to do something bigger."