Coco Gauff’s coach Brad Gilbert has joined John McEnroe in criticising the French Open’s decision not to give Rafael Nadal a seed for what may have been his final campaign at Roland Garros. The 14-time winner had been drawn against world No. 4 Alexander Zverev in the first round and was promptly defeated 6-3 7-6 (7-5) 6-3.
Nadal was unable to confirm nor deny whether he would compete at the Grand Slam again. But many felt that what could be his swansong, should have been given a chance to begin against an unseeded opponent
McEnroe felt that it was “crazy” for the Major not to award their greatest-ever player a seed, despite Nadal falling to a lowly world ranking of 275. He entered the main draw due to his protected ranking, but only the 32 highest-ranked players were seeded for the event.
“It doesn’t make sense for someone who has won 14 times not to be seeded,” McEnroe said. “It’s the way the tournament has always acted. It’s crazy to me. It’s the most interesting first round of a major that I can remember and the toughest of the Open Era for someone like Nadal.
“He has to do whatever he wants. He loves to compete and if he loses to Zverev it doesn’t mean that all his records at Roland Garros will be lost. Maybe it’s time for him to be a father and it’s time for everyone.”
Gilbert, who previously coached Andre Agassi and now works with Gauff, has joined McEnroe in his complaint. He felt that Nadal progressing in Paris would have been beneficial to the tournament and might have even set up a fairytale end to his French Open career.
He wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter): “Didn’t see a lot of Vamos-Rafa match definitely had chances in 2nd set, still feel like he deserved to be seeded like 20th and could work way into (the) tournament. Who knows about what the result could have been, just my 2 cents.”
