January 18, 2025
By Monica Holt
NZoom

A professional soccer career seemed on the cards for rising Spanish tennis star and Heineken Open finalist Rafael Nadal as little as a few years ago.

"I had been playing soccer since I was a very small kid, until I was 12," said the 17-year-old yesterday in Auckland.

"I wasn't playing bad. In fact, I was playing better soccer than tennis," he said through an interpreter.

He certainly has an enviable footballing pedigree - his uncle Miguel Angel Nadal played for FC Barcelona, Real Malorca and represented Spain at the 2002 World Cup.

"But when I was 11, I won the national U12 tennis championship, so that was a turning point."

The decision proved to be a good one, with Nadal now a rising star and the latest sensation on the men's professional tennis circuit.

With his white bandana to control his long hair, Nadal played an aggressive, controlling game, but stumbled in the final to loose after a 138-minute epic battle against Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty.

Off court, Nadal is coming to terms with the growing public attention. He has been filling the gaps in his tennis schedule by trying to improve his English, the results plain to hear when occasionally he interrupts his interpreter to answer media questions in quite coherent English.

He is being nurtured, with tour minders keen not to over-expose him too early.

His uncle Toni, who is also his coach, accompanies him around the world and the youngster stays in close contact with his family. "Of course I speak to them every day. That is normal when you are 17 and I let them know what I am doing, and when I win."

Nadal gave up school a year ago to join the ATP tour full-time, entering in 2002 with a ranking of 235 before shooting into the top 50 last year.

He was only the second 16-year-old to break into the top 100 in the ATP entry system after Michael Chang.

His mentor is former world number one Carlos Moya, who comes from the same Spanish city of Mallorca.

"He has has helped me in every way and most of all I have the chance to practice with him in Mallorca. That was the key element in my improvement," said Nadal.

He was just 10-years-old when he met Moya at a junior tournament and the the pair developed a close bond.

Last May he beat Moya at the TMS Hamburg. "I felt happy that I won the match, but it hurt too because Moya is a friend," Nadal said at the time.

For his part, Moya last year described Nadal as "the best 16-year-old I have ever seen."
Other top players rate Nadal a future star.

Lleyton Hewitt recently said: "He is carved from a very special kind of wood."

Last year Nadal missed the French Open after breaking his elbow in an act of teenage exuberance.

He tripped and fell while fooling around trying to jump over the net during practice.

It was a blow, especially for a Spanish player favouring clay, but he came back six weeks later advancing to the third round of Wimbledon becoming the youngest player to do so since Boris Becker in 1984.