The director of Roland Garros talked about the first round of the tournament between Rafa and Alexander Zverev
The first round match of the Roland Garros between Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev is the most fascinating challenge of the first days at the Parisian Slam. A tough, expected challenge, which however attracted some criticism towards the tournament director Amelie Mauresmo, who would not have protected Rafa from a very tough first round.
To respond to the criticism, Mauresmo gave an interview to the French newspaper Le Figaro, in which she talked about the men’s draw, obviously focusing on the match between Zverev and Nadal and on the other great match in the first round between Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka. Amelie explained why Rafael Nadal was not granted top seed status, which would have prevented a challenge against a top player in the first round.
“We knew that it could happen that we had Nadal against Zverev or Nadal against one of the top players in the world already in the first round. Zverev demonstrated in Rome that he is in excellent form, I imagine that Rafa will not have been happy with the draw, but he is a warrior like no other and knows this court well and the long distance of the five sets there was this semi-final which ended with Zverev’s very serious injury,” she explained.
Criticism has been raised by many for the failure to grant Nadal top seed status. Many fans claimed that an exception could have been made for a 14-time Roland Garros winner.
“If we could, we would have done it. But protecting him would have solved some problems, but it would have brought many more. Even Wimbledon stopped working like that several years ago. It’s sport, everything is possible. There are also other wonderful first rounds like Wawrinka vs. Murray match between these two great veterans, it’s another extraordinary match,” she told.
We recall Mauresmo talked about to when the London Slam board took the license to modify the ATP ranking when composing the list of seeds for the Championships, taking into consideration the aptitude and results of the players on grass.