Only sport allows an exceptionally gifted boy to practice, barely passed adolescence, can achieve international glory in his specialty and accumulate a millionaire fortune. This is the case of the Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal, a professional since the age of 15, who at 19 was already ranked second in the ranking of the Professional Tennis Association (ATP) and, at 22 years old, has become the number 1 in the world.
Rafael Nadal Parera was born on June 3, 1986 in the Mallorcan town of Manacor, where the Nadal form a large family rooted in the island since the 14th century. The patriarch of the saga is called as his grandson, Rafael, and is a great fan of the music that directs the orchestra of the city. He is the son of Sebastián Nadal, director of a company that build paddle tennis courts and organizes sporting events, and Ana Maria Parera, and has a sister, Isabel, his most enthusiastic admirer. It was his uncle Antonio, Toni, who led him on the tennis path, to become his coach and representative.
A young talent
Although the boy was better at racket (Toni was four years old with him for several hours a day) than football (not in vain was he championed by Spain at eleven years and World at fourteen) , Attracted by the wake of his other uncle, the international soccer player Miquel Àngel Nadal, became more and more enthusiastic about football. Toni cut off this indecision and told him to abandon his studies in 4º of ESO to dedicate exclusively to tennis, before the maternal disgust: “Rafa became a professional too soon. At first I was very bad, but I finally understood that it was impossible to combine studies with his sports career. ”
He enrolled in the ATP at the end of 2001, in position 818. He was only fifteen years old and already belonged to Real Club de Tenis Barcelona. However, he did not play his first professional game until April 29, 2002, at the Mallorca Open, beating Paraguayan Ramon Delgado.
He had to make his debut at Roland Garros in 2003, but an elbow injury thwarted his desire. The following year, a fissure in the scaphoid of his left foot, which kept him on crutches from April to July, also prevented him from playing the tournament. A specific plan for injury prevention was then designed “so that all the physical qualities of the tennis player would appear, which are genetic,” said Ángel Ruiz-Coto. This doctor of the Federation initiated the collaboration with the Nadal family and with the player’s physical trainer, Joan Forcades, with an average of three annual controls. The doctor pointed out, after the first test: “It has the resistance of a marathoner, but at the same time, it is explosive.”
The last semester of 2004 was especially hard: in the midst of a recovery in the rhythm of the competition, he only managed to win the tournament in Sopot (Poland). But he ended the season by becoming the youngest player to win the Davis Cup. Nadal defeated the American Andy Roddick, and his friend and mentor Carlos Moyá finished the task, so that Spain could win the second Davis Cup in its history.
Champion of Roland Garros
In spite of being a debutante, in 2005 appeared in Paris like favorite in the bets. Not until that date, from January to June, had he won five renowned titles on clay: Costa de Sauipe (Brazil), Acapulco, the Monte Carlo Masters Series, the Conde de Godó trophy and the Rome Masters Series, one A feat that, in one season and at that age, had only achieved Andre Agassi in 1988. In number of titles of the season 2005 only one outstripped in one the world one to him, the Swiss Roger Federer, who, however, defeated In Roland Garros in the semifinals, precisely on June 3, the day of Nadal’s birthday.
In the final, not without some difficulties, Nadal defeated the Argentine Mariano Puerta, who had a flawless tournament in four sets. He gave the trophy, in the presence of King Juan Carlos, his football idol, Zinedine Zidane, because, despite all his family is Barça, Rafa is a Real Madrid fan.
That triumph made him the second newcomer to win at Roland Garros, after the Swedish Mats Wilander, who got it in 1982 at only seventeen years. And, above all, he raised his popularity and charisma to an unsuspected extent, to the point that, a month later, the sponsoring company, Havas Sport, stated in its bimonthly opinion that the tennis player had become the most popular sportsman in Spain, Driver Fernando Alonso of the first position and the soccer player David Beckham of the second. The United States Tennis Association (USTA) announced that it would promote its summer tournaments with an emphasis on the image of Nadal, described as the “wonder boy”, nickname also associated with the star of Swimming Michael Phelps.
The spokesman for Nike, the company sponsoring him, said that he wanted to turn Nadal into the Tiger Woods of tennis, and that he was willing to give him a blank check to improve his contract from the age of sixteen to convert him In the icon of the multinational in the tennis field. It was the first time that a tennis player occupied that privileged position of popularity in Spain. The truth was that Alonso, Dani Pedrosa and Nadal were changing the trend of young Spanish fans whose idols were focused until recently in the world of football.
Towards the Number 1
The win at the Grand Slam tournament boosted Nadal to third place in the ATP ranking, behind Federer and Australian Lleyton Hewitt, who would dispute the final of the Wimbledon tournament with victory of the Swiss, after falling Nadal to the first exchange. In addition, he became the first Spaniard to enter the top ten at only nineteen years and chained 24 consecutive victories on clay.
His goal was to reach number one, while recognizing that before him he had an almost impassable wall, Federer, who, according to experts, was destined to become the best tennis player of all time. That ambition was good, but his uncle Toni did not let the fumes go up in his head and, after his triumph at Roland Garros, warned him: “Your level of play is still not perfect; You are a good player, but you still have to confirm that you will be one of the great players. ” For the time being, in July 2005 he won in Bastad (Sweden) and Stuttgart (Germany), and he had 34 consecutive victories on clay, and in October he won his eleventh title of the year (he won also in Montreal and Peking) The Masters Series of Madrid.
In March 2006, shortly after reappearing after an injury that had kept him inactive for four months, he won his first title in Dubai in that year. He later revalidated success in the Masters Series of Monte Carlo, in Barcelona, in the Masters Series of Rome and in Roland Garros. To win his second win in Paris, he beat Sweden’s Robin Soderling, Kevin Kim, Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu, Australian Lleyton Hewitt, Novak Djokovic, Croatian Ivan Ljubicic and, in the final, Federer 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 and 7-6).
This last match was a new chapter of the duel that Nadal and the Swiss player maintained for the world-wide primacy and that, this year, had clearly decided on the side of the Spanish (his victories in the mentioned tournaments of United Arab Emirates, Monaco and Italy also Had materialized by defeating Federer in their respective finals). Nadal won an important record in France: on May 29, when beating Soderling, won his fifty-fourth consecutive game on clay, surpassing the number of 53 undefeated encounters on this surface that, since 1977, had the Argentinean Guillermo Vilas (Nadal He would not be defeated on clay until May 20, 2007, when he fell in the final of the Hamburg Masters Series against Federer, after a series of 81 victorious matches on that floor). Soon after, Nadal had an exceptional performance in the Wimbledon Tournament; Was finalist, but this time Federer prevented him to adjudge the triumph. In that year 2006, he was awarded in his country the gold medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit.
In the first half of 2007, he won the Masters Series of Indian Wells and Monte Carlo, and for the third consecutive year, the Count of Godó of Barcelona, the Masters Series of Rome and Roland Garros. He reached his third Paris crown showing a remarkable dominance over his successive rivals: Argentine Juan Martín del Potro, Italian Flavio Cipolla, Spaniard Albert Montañés, Hewitt, Moya, Djokovic and Federer, whom Nadal defeated again in the final with a result Of 6-3, 4-6 (only set that the Spanish gave in all the match), 6-3 and 6-4. Shortly after, and as happened the previous season, both repeated final at Wimbledon, with victory for the Swiss. During that year 2007, Nadal also prevailed in the Tournament of Stuttgart. He finished the year, once again, in the second place of the ATP ladder.
The year 2008 will be remembered as the number 1. He started in low form, but the low performance that also showed Federer at that time made feasible the dream goal. He won for the fourth time two tournaments: the Monte Carlo Masters and the Count of Godó, and defeated Federer twice in two consecutive finals: the Hamburg Master Series and the Roland Garros. He won new victories at the London Queen’s Club and beat Federer again in the Wimbledon final in a game that lasted 4 hours and 48 minutes and was considered the best in tennis history. And a new triumph in the Masters of Canada made him, finally, the best player of the world according to the ranking of the ATP.
His self-reliance, his self-confidence, never giving up any point for lost, his extraordinary strength and his perseverance are some of the keys to his unstoppable success. The iron discipline imposed by his uncle does not prevent him from practicing his great hobbies: computer games, Formula 1, music (Bon Jovi, Mana, Brian Adams …), golf, and above all fishing. Inside the track projects an image that brings you so many benefits in advertising contracts as those provided by your profession. He wears t-shirts that show off his solid musculature, and pirate pants, the first of that design worn by a tennis player on the pitch.
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