‘Oh my god! Could you imagine…’: Federer, Nadal’s epic reply to ‘aren’t you tempted to play more doubles’ query

More than 17,000 spectators had arrived at the O2 Arena in London on Friday night to witness Roger Federer in his last and final match of his illustrious 24-year-long career. And he was accompanied by Rafael Nadal in the doubles match at the 2022 Laver Cup. The two have been the greatest rivals on court over the last two decades and have been great friends off the court and together, despite the lack of practice and their injury concerns, delivered an entertaining show on the opening day of the event. So will we get to see more of such doubles matches in the future featuring ‘Fedal’?

Well, that is what the interviewer asked the two when they sat for a chat after Federer’s retirement match. “You make such a fantastic doubles pair and we all love to see it. Are you not tempted to at all to keep playing doubles together?” asked the interviewer.

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“May be I can retire first,” said Nadal as he and Federer burst into laughter.

The 20-time Grand Slam winner then added saying, “Oh my god! Could you imagine that we become doubles and we think we’re gonna be great doubles pair and at the end we win nothing you know so we don’t want to take that risk. But this was a perfect end for me and I need to stop I can feel it. I am so happy right now.”

This was only the second time Nadal and Federer had teamed up for a doubles match. The last was in 2017, in the inaugural season of the Laver Cup. The two had defeated the Team World pair of Sam Querry and Jack Sock 6–4, 1–6, [10–5]. They were slated to pair up for in the 2019 edition as well but the Spaniard had withdrawn from the competition with an injury.