Andy Murray once teased Rafael Nadal with a cheeky text message after the Spaniard had been dealt a frustrating blow. The two players remain household names, having partly dominated tennis in the 2000s and 2010s alongside Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Murray won three Grand Slam titles, including two at Wimbledon, while Nadal claimed 22 to put him second on the all-time men’s list behind only Djokovic.
Nadal revealed the exchange after his farewell ceremony at last year’s French Open, saying in a press conference: “My good friend Andy, we were not in touch for a while.
“The day that Arsenal beat Real Madrid, when the match just finished, after one second, he text me a message, telling me: ‘Hey, Rafa, haven’t spoken to you in a while. Just checking in to make sure you are okay’.
“So honestly, [it] takes me like five seconds to realise what I was reading, because at the beginning, I said: ‘Okay, he’s such a nice guy. He’s asking about how I’m doing, family’.
The retired Brit, who had his own farewell ceremony at Wimbledon the previous summer, said: “I thought they did it really well. I thought the plaque on the side of the court was brilliant. I think he deserved that.
“It was great for me to be out there with those guys again. I hadn’t seen Roger or Rafa for quite a while. Obviously Novak, I have spent some time with him the last few months!
