Rafa Quotes

“People sometimes exaggerate this business of humility. It’s a question simply of knowing who you are, where you are, and that the world will continue exactly as it is without you.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“I have no sense of humor about losing”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“Losing is not my enemy...fear of losing is my enemy”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“However great your dedication, you never win anything on your own”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“The problem nowadays is that children have become too much the center of attention. Their parents, their families, everybody around them feels a need to put them on a pedestal. So much effort is invested in boosting their self-esteem that they are made to feel special in and of themselves, without having done anything.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“Si falta pasión no se encuentra la victoria”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“If he hadn’t made me play without water that day, if he hadn’t singled me out for especially harsh treatment when I was in that group of little kids learning the game, if I hadn’t cried as I did at the injustice and abuse he heaped on me, maybe I would not be the player I am today. He always stressed the importance of endurance. “Endure, put up with whatever comes your way, learn to overcome weakness and pain, push yourself to breaking point but never cave in. If you don’t learn that lesson, you’ll never succeed as an elite athlete”: that was what he taught me.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“When Federer has these patches of utter brilliance, the only thing you can do is try and stay calm, wait for the storm to pass. There is not much you can do when the best player in history is seeing the ball as big as a football and hitting it with power, confidence, and laser accuracy.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“The rest of the family looked on with a bemusement that, in the case of Rafa’s mother, occasionally gave way to anger. His father, Sebastián, had his misgivings. His uncle Rafael wondered sometimes whether Toni was pushing his nephew too hard. His godfather, his mother’s brother, Juan, went so far as to say that what Toni was doing to the child amounted to “mental cruelty.” But Toni was hard on Rafa because he knew Rafa could take it and would eventually thrive. He would not have applied the same principles, he insists, with a weaker child. The sense that perhaps he might have been right was what stopped the more doubtful members of his family from outright rebellion. One who did not doubt Toni was Miguel Ángel, the professional football player. Another disciple of the endurance principle, in which he believes with almost as much reverence as Toni himself, Miguel Ángel says that success for the elite sportsman rests on the capacity “to suffer,” even to enjoy suffering. “It means learning to accept that if you have to train two hours, you train two hours; if you have to train five, you train five; if you have to repeat an exercise fifty thousand times, you do it. That’s what separates the champions from the merely talented. And it’s all directly related to the winners’ mentality; at the same time as you are demonstrating endurance, your head becomes stronger.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“I have no sense of humor about losing.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“Humility is the recognition of your limitations, and it is from this understanding, and this understanding alone, that the drive comes to work hard at overcoming them.”
― John Carlin, Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“Se que cuando mi carrera acabe no seré un hombre feliz y quiero aprovecharla al máximo mientras dure.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story

“I learned that you always have to hang in there, that however remote your chances of winning might seem, you have to push yourself to the very limit of your abilities and try your luck. That day in Melbourne I saw, more clearly than ever before, that the key to this game resides in the mind, and if the mind is clear and strong, you can overcome almost any obstacle, including pain. Mind can triumph over matter.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story

“And then, as I was bouncing the ball up and down on the grass, just about to wind up my body to serve, the umpire cut in. “Time violation: warning, Mr. Nadal.” I had apparently spent too long between points, gone over the legal limit of twenty seconds before I served—a rule that is enforced only rarely. But it’s a dangerous rule. Because once you’ve received that first warning, any subsequent violations lead to the deduction of points. My concentration had been put to the test. I could have made a scene. The crowd, I could tell, shared my indignation. But I knew, without having to give it a second thought, that to let my feelings show would do me no good. I’d risk losing that precious asset, my concentration. Besides, the momentum was with me and I was two points away from winning the second set. I put the umpire’s interruption immediately out of my mind and won the point with a terrific and, for me, very unusual shot.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“I ran the risk of being mobbed for autographs. This is an occupational hazard that I accept and I try to take it with good grace. I can’t say “no” to people who ask me for my signature, even to the rude ones who just stick a piece of paper in front of me and don’t even say “please.” I’ll sign for them too, but what they won’t get from me is a smile. So going to the supermarket in Wimbledon, while an enjoyable distraction from the tension of competition, does have its pressures. The only place where I can go shopping in peace—where I can do anything like a normal person—is my home town of Manacor.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“Estar concentrado significa hacer en todo momento lo que sabes que tienes que hacer, no cambiar nunca tu plan, a menos que las circunstancias del peloteo o del juego cambien de un modo tan excepcional que justifiquen la aparición de una sorpresa. Pero en términos generales significa disciplina, significa contenerte cuando surge la tentación de jugártela. Luchar contra esa tentación significa tener la impaciencia o la frustración bajo control.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa, mi historia (Indicios no ficción)

“He has always been obedient, which is a sign of intelligence in a child because it shows you understand that your elders know better than you, that you respect their superior experience of the world.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“All his fears—be they of the dark, of thunderstorms, of the sea, or of the disastrous disruption of his family life—obey a compelling need. “He is a person who needs to be in control of everything,” Pérez says, “but since this is impossible, he invests all he has in controlling the one part of his life over which he has most command, Rafa the tennis player.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“Clark Kent and Superman”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“That’s why just about every top professional athlete has been laid low by injury, sometimes a career-ending injury. There was a moment in my career when I seriously wondered whether I’d be able to continue competing at the top level. I play through pain much of the time, but I think all elite sports people do. All except Federer, at any rate. I’ve had to push and mold my body to adapt it to cope with the repetitive muscular stress that tennis forces on you, but he just seems to have been born to play the game. His physique—his DNA—seems perfectly adapted to tennis, rendering him immune to the injuries the rest of us are doomed to put up with.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“Toni, himself not immune to the family
traumas, had been sympathetic, for the most part. But now, as my annus horribilis
approached its end, he said that enough was enough. It was time to buck up and return to work. “There are a lot of people who have problems in life but keep going,” he said. “What makes you so special that you should be the exception?”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“And of one thing I have no doubt: the more you train, the better your feeling. Tennis is, more than most sports, a sport of the mind; it is the player who has those good sensations on the most days, who manages to isolate himself best from his fears and from the ups and downs in morale a match inevitably brings, who ends up being world number one.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“The Rafa Nadal the world saw as he stormed onto the Centre Court lawn for the start of the 2008 Wimbledon final was a warrior, eyes glazed in murderous concentration, clutching his racquet like a Viking his axe. A glance at Federer revealed a striking contrast in styles: the younger player in sleeveless shirt and pirate’s pantaloons, the older one in a cream, gold-embossed cardigan and classic Fred Perry shirt; one playing the part of the street-fighting underdog, the other suave and effortlessly superior.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story

“Miguel Ángel dice que el éxito del deportista de élite se basa en su capacidad «para sufrir», incluso para disfrutar sufriendo.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa, mi historia (Indicios no ficción)

“reproachful—I’ve”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story

“Winning Wimbledon was an enticing enough prospect in itself, but I also knew that victory here would mean I’d soon be taking over as world number one for the first time.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“member”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“videos. And it’s a fair reflection of how I’ve played”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa

“You have to remember that often in tennis you win by only the finest of margins, that there is an element of mathematical unfairness built into the game. It’s not like basketball, where the winner is always the one who has accumulated the most points. In tennis, the outcome often turns less on being the better player overall than on winning points at critical times. That’s why tennis is such a psychological sport. It’s also a reason why you should never allow victory to go to your head. At the moment of triumph, yes, drink in the euphoria. But later on, when you watch a match you’ve won, you often realize—sometimes with a shudder—how very close you came to losing. And then you have to analyze why: was it because I lost concentration or was it because there are facets of my game I have to improve, or both?”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story

“everyone I’ve ever heard about who has succeeded in sports is a fanatical competitive edge. As a little boy I’d hate losing at anything. Cards, a little football game in the garage, whatever. I’d throw fits of rage if I lost; I still do. Just a couple of years ago I lost at cards with my family and I went so far as to accuse the others of cheating, which I now see was going a little too far.”
― Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story