WORLDSPORTS
DECEMBER 2013
“Without
confidence it’s
impossible to
play aggressively
and take the right
decisions”
– RAFAEL NADAL
US OPEN CHAMPION
Asked if he could have hoped for
such a successful run to follow, Toni
Nadal, the player’s uncle and coach, said:
“Never.
“I couldn’t imagine it in December, in
January, and the same when we went to
Vina del Mar or Sao Paulo.
“We had many problems and I
couldn’t think that seven months later
Rafa can be where he is now.”
Nadal felt more comfortable with the
knee when he was able to slide on his
favoured clay surface, and subsequent
victories in Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and
– for a record eighth time – at the French
Open were truly remarkable, but they
only confirmed that the greatest claycourter ever still ruled on that surface.
The real test would come on hard
courts, where Nadal has always felt his
knees come under greater stress than
on clay.
“It would be great if some doctors
create an opinion on that, but it’s a
conversation that we had hundreds of
times in the past,” he said at Flushing
Meadows.
“I am talking not for my generation,
because that’s not going to change, but
for the future generations it would be
better if they, the ATP, can find a solution
for that.
“The hard courts are still a little bit,
in my opinion, too aggressive to have a
very long career.”
Nadal has already been out there
a while, having turned professional in
2001 aged 15, but with 12 Grand Slams
to his name and the end of his career a
lot closer than the start, the decision was
taken to step up the aggression.
“We talked about this some months
before when we prepared the season,”
said Toni Nadal.
“We know that he should be more
aggressive for the knees, but when you
think about playing aggressively, what
makes you play like this is the con