Translated for VamosRafael.com by Lenka. Click here for scans of the article.
Two years ago the surname Nadal belonged only to the football. Miguel Angel played for Barcelona, Mallorca and even the national team. Then in the family tree appeared a boy, who has much more talent. The eighteen-year-old nephew RAFAEL NADAL helped the Spanish team to win in the Davis Cup last year and should become the number 1 of the world in tennis.
In some things Rafael is still a child. When he came home to Mallorca, he sat at the computer playing computer games for several hours. "It is my addiction," he confesses.
With the same vigour as he displays on the computer and in driving motorbikes, he launches into the opponents on the court. One example is enough. On Friday, December 4, 2004, there are a record-breaking 27,000 spectators in the stadium in Sevilla. On the programme is the final of the Davis Cup, and against the 18-years-old young man stands Andy Roddick, the icon of the American self-assurance and the tennis player with the balance sheet 12:0 over all opponent players.
He has no chance, it seems.
The Spaniard won. Nadal became a hero and the youngest tennis player in the history who won the DC.
According to experts Nadal is the biggest talent of the recent years. This year will show if he has a chance become the world no. 1 and how soon it may happen. So far he has won only one smaller tournament in Sopot, and in the ranking he moves about the 50th place. But let�s be fair, it is fault of the injuries too. [Ed Note: He has now won his second title (Brasil Open), and moved back into the Top 40.]
Nadal is a little bit different than the rest of the Spaniards. Not in that he wears the sleeveless shirts and can�t speak English well, but the main difference is in his emotions and the goals he wants to achieve.
He runs around the court, cuts with his legs in the air, waves and self-encourages with the resounding cheers. He was growing up on the clay, but he says: "I want to win Wimbledon! More than Roland Garros.�
In the spring 2003 he became the ninth tennis player who won a match before his sixteenth birthday. He was 15 years and 10 months old when he defeated in the first round Ramon Delgado. "He is much better than me at that age,� declared Boris Becker won Wimbledon at age 17. And it is a real compliment.
They sing Rafael's praises from the all sides. "It is a long time since I saw somebody so avid for the game. You will hear much about him," declared Juan Carlos Ferrero. "I�ve known him since he was 10 and day after day he keeps surprising me as to how much he improves,� claims his countryman Carlos Moya.
Moya: the mentor and Playstation partner
Rafael was born in Manacor, the second biggest city in the island of Mallorca. When he was 4 years old, aand at a weekend he dropped in to visit his uncle Toni at the local tennis club. The next weekend he came again, and then once more, and his uncle started to devote time to him personally.
His won his championship, Balearic Islands, at age 8, and he didn't fit in like the other boys. He played two-handed forhend and backhand too, such as a Monica Seles or Fabrice Santoro. When he was 10, he started to play the one-handed left-hand forehand, besides his lefty service motionl, At first sight, it is n�t strange, but Nadal is by nature a right-hander. "Apart from the tennis I can do nothing with my left hand. I eat, write and all other things I do with my right hand," he explains.
By that time it was obvious Spain had a large tennis talent. At age 11, he even appeared in some school book as one of the kids of the future. One uncle went with him on the tennis and the other, the football player of the Spanish national team, to the football matches. It is not surprising that when the tennis season ends, and it�s time for football exhibition matches, Rafael is one of the best players on the pitch.
A meeting with Carlos Moya had a big impact on his career. Moya is one of the best Spanish tennis players of recent years and also is a native of Mallorca. They became a friends and also a training partner.
"He has helped me much, espeacially when I was 14. Whenever I need help, he advises me. He is my role model. Much bigger than Sampras or Agassi,� says Rafael.
With Moya, he spends hours in front of the computer. When they sit to the Playstation, they don�t speak about tennis. Otherwise they phone every day. And if they are at the same tournament they train together, of course. After all, Moya has become his mentor on the ATP Tour. "He can help me, mainly mentally. As a young player I need it very much,� claimes Rafael.
Those how knew Rafael when he was younger, see a different boy. He didn't have much self-confidence and thought he was nobody. He thought that the others ignored him, not wanting to spend time with a 16-year-old child. It has changed. "Today Rafael is a winning type, mentally very strong,� declares his uncle Toni.
For the first time on the Davis Cup team, he eliminated the Czechs.
Not long ago showed his self-confidence in the Czech Republic, and especially Radek �t?p�nek doesn�t recall this match in a good sense. He crumbled to the Spaniard last year in Brno in the first round of DC. Our tennis players almost celebrated. We just had to rout their "B" team: Tommy Robredo, Feliciano Lopez, Alberto Martin and the seventeen-years old novice Rafael Nadal, the youngest member of the Spanish team ever (who grinned after arriving in sunglasses and looking like a mannequin).
Moya and Ferrero didn�t arrive and the home team expected an easy victory. But the first trouble: Nadal defeated Nov�k a month ago, 6-1 6-3 in Auckland. "He shot me to pieces, I had no chance. Now I know how to play against him,� said Nov�k. "I played a very good match, he didn't," explained Nadal. "It isn�t usual to defeat the 14th player of the world so easily."
They met in the first match and Novak got his revenge. Nadal made an effort to win, showed a great shots, but the first match for his country he lost � after 2 hours and 33 minutes, 6-7 3-6 6-7. But his big moment had to come.
Every day his injured friend Moya phoned him in Brno. "For Davis Cup we trained together,� said Nadal. "For the last time we played together on Saturday but only 20 minutes. He couldn�t play any more.�
After two days, the Czech Republic led 2-1 but for the Sunday match they lost their number 1 Nov�k. And without Novak, they have noone.
First Berdych lost to the handsome, big-serving Feliciano Lopez, and to the decisive single came down to Stapanek and Nadal. They counted that the young opponent wouldn't withstand the pressure, but the opposite happened. The other man broke down. When Stepanek writes his memoirs, he will have to write of the important match: defeat, defeat, defeat.
It was a fight full of emotions and histrionic gestures. The match was dominated by Nadal, who conquered the guy who is six years older, 7-6 7-6 6-3. "A big victory for a tennis player who, at his age, outshined Stepanek. Stepanek had the support of the whole auditorium," wrote the Spanish journal Marca. "He was faster and I made errors. I didn't feel good,� said Stepanek.
The captain, Jordi Arrese, made a surprising but very good choice in going with Nadal. "During these days I found out what it means to play Davis Cup. Especially on Sunday,� declared Nadal. "The whole of Spain was behind me and I couldn�t disappoint them. It was the most important victory in my life because it helped the whole country. I thank Jordi for his trust. It wasn�t easy for him to place all the responsibility on a seventeen-year-old boy, but he did it.�
For the 10th time, the visiting team turned the the from score 1:2. The last time they did it was in 1998 in Brasil. Nadal also got the deciding point in the semifinal against France.
I want win to win Wimbledon!
It is odd, but Nadal�s talent comes through more in the doubles than in the singles so far. In the doubles he has won three titles yet: in 2003 Umag with Lopez-Moron, 2004 Chennai with Robredo and 2005 Doha with Costa. With Robredo they were even in the seminfinal of the US Open last year, whereas in the singles he has won only won tournament, in Sopot so far.
Rafael has been a professional player since he passed the first round in a challenger in Sevilla at age 15. In the following season he has appeared more at the futures and he has won 6 tournaments with the score 37 wins and 3 losses. At the challenger in Barcelona he has got even into the semifinal and defeated players as Charpentier, Calatrava and Montanes.
He was still of a "junior" age when he arrived at the junior Wimbledon, where he saw for the first time in his life the grass on the court. He advanced to the semifinal and when he left declared: "Someday I will win here! And I will become a world number 1.�
He didn't play junior tournaments. The view in Spain by young players is "Why should we travel around the world when we have around us so many good tennis players?
"Many of my countrymen have shown it is enough to train at home. And you can win the Grand Slams as well,� he said in 1999 at the World Championship in the Czech Republic).
The breakthrough year for Nadal came in 2003, when a dishevelled youngster reached the Top 50, and without the shoulder injury that forced him to miss Ronald Garros, he may have risen higher. It was that Spring that the tennis world began to watch his progress carefully. At his first tournament of the Masters Series in Monte Carlo, he came through the qualification, and in the first round defeated the Slovakian Karol Kucero, and in the second round defeated Albert Costa, less than a year after his triumph at the French Open. "I thought I had no chance against him,� he thinks back. "Till then he was unknown, Costa even didn�t know against who he will play,� says his uncle and couch Toni.
He advanced to the third round in Hamburg, too, where he defeated his life friend Moya, and he reached the third round at Wimbledon. He came back to the claycourters, and in June got to the quarterfinal in Bastad and two weeks later even to the semifinal in Umag, where he won his first title in the doubles. He did well in the challengers, too: he defeated Portas in the final in Barletta and Z�b in Segovia.
The following year he didn�t have to start at the small tournaments.
Congratulations from the Spanish king
He is called Rafa or Rafi. When Nadal bites into the opponent, he doesn�t let him go. Roger Federer got to know the power of his forehand. The young Spaniard defeated him in Miami in the spring last year at the tournament which the players call "the fifth Grand Slam.." He reached the Round of 16 there.
The last year began very good, and it seemed would reach the Top 30, 20, 10, 5 ... The second week in January he played the final in Auckland, but lost to the Slovakian Hrbat�.
At the Australian Open he lost in the third round to the home fighter Hewitt and after in Brno began his great season in the Davis Cup. He slowly moved Spain to the final and he himself collected successes on the ATP Tour: the quarterfinal in Dubai and Estoril.
It was April 15th and the match in the second round against the big talent Gasquet from France started quite well. He won in the third set but got hurt. He withdrew from the tournament but he didn�t know that his ankle was seriously injured.
An examination revealed he had a fracture, and it was clearly he would not play Roland Garros, the favourite Wimbledon aor the Olympic Games in Athens. He couldn�t play at all for many weeks.
The recovery lasted eventually 3 months. Nadal didn�t hang about. Because he couldn�t stand fully on the foot, he trained the shots in the chair and swam. On the courts he came back on July 6th and continued collecting the quarterfinals: Bastad and a week later in Stuttgart. The reward for the long wait came in August when he won his ATP first title. In Sopot he defeated Argentinine Jose Acasuso.
In the rest of the year, he showed he had not had enough training. In his 9 matches in singles he lost 5, and dropped in the rankings from the 34th position he held in March. But it wasn�t so bad. In the US Open he reached surprisingly the semifinal with Robredo in doubles.
That that wasn't the biggest moment -- that came when King Juan Carlos congratulated him personally.
"In every period of my life were the crucial matches. It is one of them," declared Nadal after beating the No. 2 player in the world, Andy Roddick, in the final of the Davis Cup. The media wrote about the dynamite in his left hand and that the new star had begun to shine. It was in the right moment because the Spaniards prepared the most spectacular final in the history. On the stadium in La Cartuja in Sevilla was seated 27,000 people. "I was nervous," said Nadal. "Such responsibility I have never had in my life.�
Mature tactically and mentally
In June he will be 19. At that age, he should prove the depth of his talent. At the beginning of the season, he was No. 51 in the rankings, but he has an advantage in that he doesn't have many points to defend this year.
If he is healthy, he will play for the first time Roland Garros. He has never played there, even not as a junior.
"I have plenty of things to improve,� says Rafael. He trains enough, on the average 5-6 hours in a day with a conditional training.
When he is not playing tennis or computer games, he goes fishing or watches television. He likes a chocolate, and he confesses that many times he has overeaten and felt sick.
He supports the Real Mallorca and Real Madrid soccer teams, and has read novels by John Grisham. When he was a boy he collected autographs from soccer polayers, and now gives them himself to kids. Soccer is still important to him, though. And the Czechs? "The best is of course Pavel Nedved," he claims.
He has no girlfriend for now so he can devote all his energy to the sport. "He is tactically and mentally very mature. He can come a long way,� claims the Czech number one Jiri Novak.
Name: Rafael Nadal
Born: 3 June 2024 in Manacor (Mallorca)
Residence: Manacor
Height/weight: 183 cm, 75 kg
Plays: left hand, backhand (till 10 years forehand too) two-handed
Professional: since 2001
Winner the Davis Cup 2004
Singles titles:
1 - Sopot
1 in the final - Auckland
Doubles titles: 3
2003 - Umag
2004 - Chennai
2005 - Doha
semifinal US Open 2004
The biggest weapon: forehand (in the season 2004 the biggest % success the first service of all players ATP - 70% )
Earnings: 800 000 dollars
Career highest ATP ranking: 34th (22 March 2024)
Hobbies: PlayStation, fishing, movies, football (fan of FC Mallorca and Real Madrid)
Coaches: Toni Nadal, Jofre Porta
**Thanks to Lenka for this translation. Please do not reproduce on other sites without express permission of VamosRafael.com.**
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