In RAFA, the famed tennis star talks about previously unknown details from his professional and personal life. John Collins, the award-winning journalist that helped Nadal write his memoir, does an excellent job in getting and writing down on paper all of Rafael Nadal’s secrets and accounts. He helps create a well-written memoir that you will find hard to stop reading as RAFA contains all of Nadal’s fears, strengths, and ambitions.
Rafa comes from a very close and thigh-knit family, and, according to the Spaniard, that is a big part of his future success in life. He first started practising tennis in his hometown of Mallorca at the age of four, and his uncle Toni was his first tennis coach.
The Beginning of Nadal’s Life
Nadal’s parents instilled discipline, humanity, and respect for others in him from very early on. Even if you watch Rafa playing today, you will see that he is perfect towards his opponents, is a graceful loser, and never disrespects umpires or ball boys.
The same is true in his private life. Despite becoming a global celebrity with millions in his bank accounts, Nadal does not act like a superstar. He is very humble and is the perfect role model for people who want to improve in life through hard work.
And working hard has been something that Rafa has done all his life. In his memoir, he tells Carlin that he feels inferior to the likes of Federer when it comes to talent. He says that for him, Roger Federer is the most talented player out there. However, he does his best to be on par with him and works his socks off in training to narrow the gap in talent with some good old hard work.
And that hard work has paid dividends for Nadal, especially when playing against Federer on grass and hard courts. He might not have won most of those matches, but he was competitive until the end in most of them.
Rafa’s Attitude
While Rafa is the undisputed clay champion, grass and hard courts are not his ideal surfaces. John Carlin notes that even though Nadal only lost three French Open titles in 16 years, his grass and hard-court records have been nowhere near as impressive.
For instance, when Federer and Nadal meet at the ATP Cincinnati Open 2021, Rafa will have the chance to win the hardcourt tournament for only the second time in his long career. In contrast, Federer has won the ATP Cincinnati Open a record seven times.
ATP Cincinnati Open: How Nadal Defeats Players
The ATP Cincinnati Open is one of the more illustrious Masters 1,000 tournaments on the ATP Tour, and it has always been one of the tournaments that have eluded Nadal the most.
Sticking with the Cincinnati Open, it is easy to see why Rafael Nadal has to work so hard in training to become as good, or even better, than his more talented peers. You only have to look at the list of recent ATP Cinncinati Open winners to realize why these hard court tournaments mean so much to Nadal.
For example, Grigor Dimitrov and Marin Cilic have won the Cincinnati Open in the Rafael Nadal era, even though they have never been at the top of the ATP rankings for as long as Nadal. Even Big 4 member Andy Murray, who we will all agree was an inferior player compared to the Spaniard, managed to win the Cincinnati tournament on two occasions, in 2008 and 2011.
So, when Nadal says in his memoir that he relies on hard work to stay at the top of world tennis, you only need to look at the Cincinnati Open to see that this is true. If he didn’t, he would have never even had the chance to win Wimbledon or the Cincinnati Open. But he did.
The Verdict
In RAFA, Nadal says that “you have to cage yourself in protective armour” and “turn yourself into a bloodless warrior”. That might sound scary, but it means only one thing – he would work extra hard to win.
And so should you. Nadal says that as long as the talent gap is not too wide, he can always narrow it down with a lot of hard work and then defeat his opponents at their own game. In other words, if you apply yourself and work hard, there are no dreams that you cannot achieve.