Rafael Nadal Rafael remains the favorite to win his 12th Roland Garros title and 18th Grand Slam crown. The Spaniard won his first title of 2019 in Sunday’s Italian Open final, when he beat Novak Djokovic in three sets.
Speaking in an interview, Arsenal manager Unai Emery admits that he admires the mentality of his compatriot Nadal as a tennis star.
“I saw him live in one match and I also like to play tennis too. When I am playing tennis, I am thinking in each moment during the match that I need to be very strong in my mind to battle my opposition player. If he’s better than me, with different strategies to play and fight against him too.” Emery said.
“Tennis is different from football because tennis is an individual game and an individual sport. Football is one team with 11 players and we need to do the combination and we need also where one player is not playing well another is playing well, the relation between them is very important.” Emery added.
Arsenal ended a disappointing domestic season in fifth place on 71 points, 21 points behind champion Manchester City. However, Emery hopes Europe League win over Chelsea will bring the Gunners to the Champions League next season.
“Tennis for me is a good sport because the mindset is very important. Because you need to be very strong in your mind and for the relationship with football I think it is the same.” Emery said.
Rafael Nadal enters French Open 2019 after win over Novak Djokovic at Italian Open final. (Source:www.sportskeeda.com)
“It’s the idea to transmit for the players, for each single player, to take this mindset to work strongly and to have a big individual mentality. After, if you can play with 11 players with a big mentality, for example like with Rafa Nadal, you can take the best performance and results for this sport.
“We want to play for the possibility to take one title and the second is to enter the Champions League if we win that. But we knew it was going to be difficult and we finished in the Premier League without that possibility.” he added.
