Shortly after tennis star Sloane Stephens asked on Twitter for someone to teach her Spanish and her husband admitted that he is not fluent in the Latin-derived language, she shared a selfie with Rafael Nadal. “Can someone teach me Spanish? I have a month to learn,” Stephens asked on Twitter on August 14.
Stephens’ husband, footballer Jozy Altidore, was quick to respond. “!”#$, if you had a fluent speaking husband,” Altidore replied to the tweet. Shortly after, with a tweet written in Spanish, Stephens announced that she had started using the language learning platform Duolingo.
“Good morning! I start my first day of Duolingo today. Wish me luck,” Stephens said. On the same day, Stephens tweeted a selfie with Rafael Nadal. “Friends,” Stephens captioned the selfie. Already in 2018, during a press conference, Sloane Stephens shared a funny anecdote involving Rafael Nadal.
The American player said that she asked him to hit together like Maria Sharapova did in Rome, but Nadal did not accept it. “I asked [Nadal]. Why didn’t you let me hit with you? And [Nadal’s coach] Francis [Roig] said, ‘You have to win another tournament to play with him.’
And I said, ‘Fine.’ ” After a reporter pointed out that Stephens was a Major champion, Stephens added: “I know, but it’s not enough. He’s like Rafa. You have to do more. She was joking, but still… I was, like – one day, I’m going to get over her and hit Federer, take Federer on the grass.
I have to get over it, I have to. I’m going to start ordering it soon.”
Wertheim opens up on Nadal
Speaking about the match in an interview with the Tennis Channel, sports journalist Jon Wertheim opened up on Rafael Nadal.
“Yeah, he can use the time off to sort of reassess,” Wertheim said. “What happened? There seem to be a lack of confidence. We were all looking at the serve and would that be impacted by this abdominal injury. That did not seem to be the case today, it really was just playing some tight big points,” he said.
“He’s going to New York, the player who ostensibly will be the number one seed. Djokovic would be the favorite, but Djokovic as of now is not in the draw and so Nadal has to be considered a favorite. This is not the tune up that he needed, but I do think an extra week off and sort of the best-of-five format, I think will help him, but this was not one of his prime performances tonight,” he added.
