In an interview with Cancellera.com on the eve of his retirement last week, 2004 Roland Garros champion Gaston Gaudio recalls confronting a teenage Rafael Nadal and palling around with a young Roger Federer.
Gaudio said that after he beat Nadal 0-6, 6-0, 6-1 in Buenos Aires in 2005 (just four months before the Spaniard would win his first major at Roland Garros), Rafa broke all of his rackets in the locker room in a fit of anger, but it was clear to the Argentine that he had a thirst for glory. "What's wrong with this kid, is he crazy?" Gaudio thought. "It’s not like he lost to a nobody. I had been playing on clay and won Roland Garros, but Rafa felt like a failure."
Gaudio also recalls a incident from 2005 when he was playing the tournament in Doha and he told Federer that football star Gabriel Batistuta was in the area playing. Federer asked Gaudio if he could set up a meeting, so Gaudio arranged a dinner, but did not tell Federer that Batistuta was coming.
"You could not believe Roger’s face: he looked like a boy. He was so shocked it was as if the Messiah had come. He gave him a racket; he asked to take photos, everything. Then we became friends. We talked about everything but tennis."