Andre Agassi recalls the first time he saw Rafael Nadal: 'I knew I'd never beat him'

Before Rafeal Nadal became 14-time Roland Garros champion and member of the Big 3 Rafael Nadal, he was yet another talented teenager working his way through the professional tennis tour.

He was on the tour for just two years when Andre Agassi first got a glimpse of the champion within.

“You want me to tell you when I knew ... I would never beat him?” the American recently recalled on Served with Andy Roddick.

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Roddick listened along as Agassi set the scene in the locker rooms at Roland Garros two years before Nadal’s first title in Paris.

“You remember those lockers where they used to click them?” Agassi continued. “I could see him through lockers, and he looks at his code, and he’s a rookie trying to figure it out.

“He’s like [Rafa grunt] and then he starts again. Looks at his code, click, click, click, and it doesn’t open. He goes BAM! and he hits the locker. I’m not kidding, God as my witness, he hits the locker. I’m going, 'Is this kid serious?'

“Then he’s like click, click, click, and it opens, and he goes, 'Vamos!',” Agassi exclaimed, copying Nadal's iconic same-arm-same-leg celebratory cheer.

“There was no one else in there, and he self-Vamos'd?” Roddick asked in wonderment.

Agassi repeatedly assured that the story was not only a truthful recollection, but indeed his first impression of the future legend of the sport.

“He was like in a war with the locker and he was going to win it, and he won it, and I was like, 'I can’t beat this guy,'” Agassi said.

Agassi and Nadal met twice on tour, and ironically, neither match was played on red clay. The Spaniard indeed defeated the American both times: the first for a Masters 1000 title and the second a year later in the second round of Wimbledon.