Rafa is definitely the most important and successful player in the French Open history. His well known injury made him slip to a incongruous world no.5 rank.
That poses a sort of threat to the tournament as we could witness a Djokovic-Nadal or Federer-Nadal quarter…ie. finger licking matches that should happen later in the tournament.
So for a while we had a debate if it would be fair (or nicer for the tournament) to give Rafa an higher seed also because he is definitely not the world no.5 on clay.
After some debates the Roland Garros director Gilbert Ysern told a French Newspaper that they are going to follow the official rankings to comment “We thought about it for a long time, but not as a way of avoiding Djokovic in the quarter-finals.
With his record at the tournament, the best player in history of the event and all that he represents, it seemed incongruous that he could arrive in Paris at number four or five. But now, having weighed it up, for and against, we decided not to touch the seedings. What could have been considered homage or a tribute appeared like a dirty business.”
Here some highlights of Rafa’s triumph in 2012 vs Djokovic
