ARTICLES:
- The Gift by Rafael Nadal – The Players’ Tribune
When I was young, I learned a lesson that still sticks in my mind.
I am not sure exactly how old I was, but I think I was around 12. During that age, I loved to go fishing. I love the sea, because I am from Mallorca, and in my case the sea is part of my life. It’s about the feeling of being by the sea, sitting on the rocks with your family and friends, or out on a boat — the disconnection and peace you feel is something special. One day, I went out fishing when I could have been training. The next day, I lost my match. I remember I was crying in the car on the way back home, and my uncle, who at that young age had a big influence on me, and who was the one who made me fall in love with tennis, he said: “It’s OK, it’s just a tennis match. Don’t cry now, there is no point. If you want to fish, you can fish. No problem. But you will lose. If you want to win? If you want to win, then you have to do what you have to do first.” It was a very important lesson for me. If people see me as a perfectionist, then it comes from that inner voice that was calling to me on the car ride home. The voice has never left me. One day, I can be at the sea. Today, and tomorrow … I have to practice.
For more than 30 years, I have given everything I can to this game.
In return, I received joy and happiness. Joy and happiness, love and friendship, and so much more….
- Rafael Nadal on post-retirement goals, promoting tennis in Saudi Arabia and his ATP Finals regret – The National
Five weeks on from that final match, Nadal is at complete “peace” with himself. “I was ready for it. It’s important I was 100 per cent ready,” he said of that moment in Malaga.
“The last year and a half have been very tough in terms of not being able to practise and compete on a regular basis and to the standard that I am used to. So I tried my best until the last day.
“I just did the surgery in my hip to try to keep going but it simply didn’t work as good as I needed it to be to keep going. But I’m 100 per cent at peace with myself that I tried my best until the last day, to have success, and to stay with calm with myself that I did all I could do to be very well satisfied with myself.”
- Round table with Rafa! Nadal offers advice to #NextGenATP stars in Jeddah – ATP Tour
“For me it’s about a personal feeling that if I don’t give my best, I don’t try my best, I come back home and I am not calm with myself,” explained Nadal, who retired last month as a 92-time tour-level champion. “At the end, it’s the fear of not being satisfied with myself. It’s about, ‘Okay I can lose, I can play terribly, I can play good’, but what cannot happen is not going off the court knowing that I tried.
“For me that is the key at the end, to have the personal responsibility to give your best regardless of the situation. Sometimes giving your best is a disaster, in terms of you are playing so bad… If you are mentally there and able to accept the challenge, accept that you are playing terribly but you need to fight with what you have that today, a lot of days you have the level to win that match. Then the next day, you play a little bit better and win the match, and somehow things can change quickly in our sport.”
VIDEO: Spanish tennis bids farewell to Rafael Nadal
Social media related to Rafa:
How luck Rafa was to have such a great coach as uncle Toni.