Tennis: 'what I Love is That Feeling of 'ok, Now the Rivalry's Alive'

What's to look forward to at this year's Roland Garros? This year's going to be fantastic because you have Roger Federer, who's trying to define himself as the greatest player who ever played but still has to win that elusive French Open, and Rafael Nadal, who's like Superman, with bigger biceps than I've got quads on my legs. He's the man Federer has to get through because he never loses on clay. And now it's really set up because Federer finally did get through him last weekend in the final of the Hamburg Masters.

Nadal is trying to bounce back from losing his 81-game streak on clay. How will that affect him coming in? Well, I have to respect him for playing Hamburg, if I was his coach I would never have had him play Hamburg, even though politically I know he's trying to take a stance and tell the ATP that they need to keep that tournament going. In the end he not only played there, he got to the finals, and he was really only one point away from winning the event. Had he broken Federer in the second set, he probably would have won the whole thing. Instead Federer changed the momentum. All of a sudden he believed in himself, held his serve, broke Nadal, then won something like 10 of the next 11 games and played phenomenally well, and Nadal got tired. So that's the only thing I think holding him back, whether he's mentally refreshed by the time he gets to Paris. Personally I think he will be refreshed and he'll make it three French Opens in a row.

But can Federer really live with Nadal over five sets? The thing is, Federer has made a tough decision to get rid of one of the best coaches, Tony Roche, because he was on a downwards run. He was always going to have a dip - he'd had three years of being the most phenomenal player in the world - so he had to make some decisions, and he wanted to be his own man, he wanted to go his own way. I think he needed to get a little angry on the court against Nadal and show him a little bit more, and now he's found that. If he serves well he has a chance, if he doesn't he's in trouble. But that's what makes this French Open so exciting, because if Nadal had won that match it would have been a bit of an anti-climax. What I love is that feeling of 'OK, now the rivalry's alive.' And hopefully it'll be like McEnroe and Borg, where everyone is either a Federer fan or a Nadal fan. Personally I was always a McEnroe fan, whereas (Tim) Henman was always a Borg fan.

Somehow that doesn't surprise! So we can safely assume that you're a Nadal man now then? No, I'm a Federer man - strange I know! He's the nicest world No1, he's a great guy, he does a lot of work for charity. He doesn't have the biceps of Nadal, so he doesn't wear the muscleman shirt, which the ladies love, and I'm sure the kids love those sort of outfits as well, but I'm a Federer fan. I'm taking the Borg from my era instead of the McEnroe.

You're getting old Greg... Not that old! My hair hasn't fallen out completely, so I can't be that old yet.

Can anyone else realistically beat Nadal on clay if it's not Federer? Well, Nikolay Davydenko played him very close in Rome and Lleyton Hewitt played great against him in Hamburg. Gonzalez didn't really challenge him in the Rome final, but he beat him in Australia this year. The person who's going to be dangerous for Federer is Guillermo Cañas. Cañas has beaten him twice, Cañas beat him before going on his drug suspension, so he was always a nightmare to play against, but Federer's just got that little bit of edge back now. And if he doesn't make the final there's Davydenko, there's Hewitt, there's Carlos Moya who's had a re-emergence, but maybe isn't quite ready to win the tournament. There's also always a Frenchman who ends up playing well, which could be Richard Gasquet this year. Murray would have been exciting because before he hurt his wrist he was playing very well against Filippo Volandri.

Obviously your own career was disrupted at key moments by injuries, are you not worried that the same could happen to Andy? No, I think he has a really good staff around him and that's the key. He's got Brad Gilbert, who coached Agassi and coached Andy Roddick, and took both of them to world No1 and Grand Slam championships. If he ever wants any advice he's got my phone number, he can call me any time. But I think he's got enough good people around him not to take any risks, and he realizes he's only 20.He might have to take two steps backwards to recover this injury, but that'll make him stronger for the future. And to win Grand Slams, I don't see that happening for at least two to four years for him anyway, because there's someone called Federer, and there's someone called Nadal, and timing's everything in life.

What's great about him though is that he wants everything now. He's very flamboyant, you know he said when he was top 400 he wanted to be 50th, and the press didn't believe it but he got to 50, then he said he was going to be 20, he got to 20, then he said "I'm going to be 10", he's 10. But now he's got to say 'OK, fine, I'm going to take those goals away for a few months, get myself healthy, and then I'll be back, but not before I'm 100% healthy.'

That's one thing Agassi always did really well in his career, he would not play unless he was healthy. When he got to the end it was different because he was at the end and it was more 'OK, I want to keep playing even though my body's not good and I want to take a risk', but during the main part of his career he always had that really good attitude, and I'm sure Gilbert learned a lot working with Andre in that respect, so I think he'll handle that well.

Has he taken on too big a workload? He's spoken recently about quitting the Davis Cup... I don't think that's gonna happen. I remember seeing a quote in the paper from Tim and he spoke to Andy, and he said something like 'I'm sure he'll be there in September against Croatia'. Andy's a guy who thrives on controversy, who likes the hype, and who likes those areas, but I'll be more surprised if he's not there. I think he'll be there because to be on court No1 in September, on grass, in front of 10 or 11,000 people - it's pretty hard to resist.

You managed to pass it up this year Greg! Well, I never passed it up, I've retired, but I never passed it up. Whenever I was called on duty I always played and I managed to play 13 years in a row, and break the record for most consecutive Davis Cup playing. So I don't think he'll pass it up, especially with Tim playing, and with his little brother Jamie there.

Without Andy Murray is there any hope for us Brits at the French Open? I think Tim, Tim had a phenomenal run a few years back, where he got to the semi-finals of the French. I think that's going to be really difficult for him to do again, but he can get through a few matches.

Right now we're in a process in British tennis where there's a total facelift happening to the game. We've got a new guy in charge, Roger Draper, he's not afraid to spend big money to get the best coaches in the world, we have one of the best centres in the world at Roehampton, and we're getting people into talent identification. This process is going to take five-ten years before we see anything come to fruition, but we need to get to a point where the public can go to the French Open, or to Wimbledon and see five-ten players, whether it's in the women or in the men's.

Do you see yourself getting involved with coaching at any stage? Yeah, I definitely see myself involved with working with the younger players, talent spotting and helping out. I think I have a good knowledge of the game, so I'd love to give something back.

Alex Bogdanovic failed to qualify for Roland Garros again this year - will he ever come good? I think Alex, the key for him has always been mental. He's got the talent, but you have to have the mind and the body, both are intertwined. He has to show me mentally he's gotten a lot stronger, because the talent is there tennis-wise, striking the ball. For him this is a key time, if he doesn't get it soon enough it's gonna be tough for him. I think he's starting to go in the right direction, but we've said this many times, so it's up to him to grab it by the scruff of the neck and say: 'OK, I want to do this, I want to take it'.

Roland Garros has just become the last of the four Grand Slam tournaments to go for parity with men and women - was that something that needed to happen? For me on that issue it's always supply and demand, it's about what the customer wants. If they want to watch more women's tennis, pay women more, if they want to watch more men's tennis, then pay more for women's tennis. It should be on supply and demand just like anything else. For me, equal prize money has to be justified.

Is it in this case then? I think it is at the moment because the women's game has so much more depth. The depth of women's tennis has got so much stronger lately.

Do you enjoy it as much as men's? I've always liked both. When I was growing up it was always Martina Navratilova and Chris Evett-Lloyd in the finals of Wimbledon, that was the thing I always looked forward to, and I was always a Martina fan because she was the aggressor, she had the serve and volley. That's what I really like in tennis though, is rivalries.

Do you think women should go to five sets? No, I think keeping it to three sets works really, really well, and that's the way it's always been but (with a smile), if they want to change it to five sets please do.

Very diplomatic. So who's going to win the women's draw? I think Henin's going to be the massive favorite and Jankovic being the outsider, but I would love Mauresmo to do well. Just like you want the British guy to win Wimbledon, whether it's Murray or Henman, in France they want Mauresmo to win on the women's side and it would make the tournament so much more fun if she could make the semi-final or the final.

Greg will be presenting British Eurosport's coverage of Roland Garros alongside Peter Fleming and Annabelle Croft. As well as their usual television coverage, Eurosport will also be be streaming this year's matches live online.