“I would pay a lot of money to know” | Relief

Nobody reading these lines needs to know that Rafael Nadal‘s tennis career has always been linked to certain commonplaces. The first of all, without a doubt, is that of victory. Nadal has won, and he has won a lot; specifically, 1080 matches, 22 Grand Slams, 36 Masters 1000, five Davis Cups and two Olympic golds.

The triumph, however, has not been the only action taken by the Mallorcan throughout his career. Behind the champion, the impregnable figure that we have all known on the track, There has always been an achievement of actions, let’s call them manias, tics, routines or simply customs.which have allowed Nadal to be who he is and, as he himself has acknowledged on numerous occasions, to be focused on what he should.

“When I always do the same things, I am focused on what I have to do“said the Spaniard in an interview given in 2019 to the program ’60 minutes’, of the CBS United States. “It’s something that helps me keep my head awake.thinking purely about what I have to do.” For this reason, Relevo wanted to delve deeper into the quirks and routines of the best Spanish tennis player of all time.

Nadal, the bench and the water bottles

Who hasn’t been captivated on the other side of the television watching Nadal carefully placing his bottles. During breaks, between games, just when the manacorí momentarily visited the bench, the image was recurring: after hydrating and eating a few calories, Nadal returned the bottles to the floor, next to his feet, with almost millimetric care.

It’s not normal, of course, to see someone do this for years. So much so that On some occasions the matter unleashed laughter from Nadal himself. It was in Melbourne, at the 2015 Australian Open, when the wind knocked over one of the manacorí bottles. The public was a clamor when one of the ball boys returned the container to its usual position with the same care as the Spaniard. Nadal, with the round of 16 match against Kevin Anderson already on track, could not contain his laughter.

The Spaniard has also set a trend with other everyday elements, such as the strings, the grips, which are longer than usual, especially during the first half of his career, and the band-aids, the famous band-aids on the fingers. “The blisters are painful and difficult to cover“He warned at the 2014 Australian Open, when he suffered greatly with several parts of his hand raw. “If I continue like this I’m going to destroy it“.

Nadal’s serve routines

Now, if there is A ritual that we all associate with the figure of Nadal is, without a doubt, the one that happens with each of his services. It would be, in order, as follows: towel, reception of balls, looking at and choosing them, slip of the right foot on the service line, discarded ball into the pocket, first bounces with the racket, readjustment of the underwear, a touch on each shoulder, hand to the nose, to one ear, back to the nose, to the other ear, three or four bounces of the ball with the hand and, finally, the point begins.

“I would have paid a lot of money to know what he thinks in each of his routines“says Rafael Mateos, professor of Psychology at the Autonomous University of Madrid and collaborator of TYM Psicología. “The serving routine can correspond to mental processes to maintain concentration, to have a sense of control in a sport where uncertainty usually reigns. Surely he will think, okay, this is something that I always do, that I control and that lands me in the present, in the now.”

The ritual, however, generated imitations throughout the world. Especially notable were those of Novak Djokovicwho at the 2007 US Open caricatured Nadal and his famous underwear readjustment in front of the thousands of spectators who packed the Arthur Ashe… and in the locker rooms, with other tennis players. That did not sit well at all in the Manacorí environment.which soon built a rivalry with ‘Nole’ that would mark an era.

Is the game won from the warm-up?

Iconic was the image of Nadal warming up before the 2022 Roland Garros final against Casper Ruud. Faced with the protocol wait, the Spaniard, restless, He went from one place to another, jumping, running and, in short, activating every muscle in the body.. Ruud, for his part, remained motionless, waiting for instructions from the organizers to access the Philippe Chatrier.

“Nadal did not do that to intimidate Ruudas many people thoughtbut to increase his activation before the match,” explains Mateos. “Rafa has always been a player who needs that, to feel his heart beat at a higher rate than others when it comes to starting the match. It is neither better nor worse, Many times we have tended to think that, in view of his results, what Nadal did was always the right thing, and notit is not like that. Many people have done their routines and they have not been successful at all.”

The towels and the ball boys

Another of the elements that has marked andNadal’s obsessive character on the court It was the towels. The Spaniard has always needed a lot of clothes to dry off the sweat, something that, except in the time of covid, has always been linked to the help of the ball boys.

Nadal has always maintained the same routines in this section. So much so that the Australian Open itself shared a video on its networks in which it demonstrated the theory. In it, Nadal receives the towel from one of the ball boys, He dries the sweat and does not return it until, with a characteristic gait, of short steps, he overcomes the letters. that shine on Melbourne’s center court.

This relationship with towels has also caused some problems. At last year’s Australian Open, the last of his career, Nadal had a heated argument on court with judge Marijana Veljovic. “With other referees at least I can go for the towel, with you not even that“said the Spaniard, visibly angry. “It doesn’t matter if I serve normally, I’m always in a hurry. The same thing always happens to me with you“.

Off-court routines

Beyond biting trophies, another of the most repeated routines throughout his career, over the years Nadal has reproduced certain customs off the courts. His devotion to chocolate is well known, a sweet that he has never given up despite his changes in diet.

In his more than 20 seasons as a professional, Nadal will have played as much or more Parcheesi than tennis. Also to the PlayStation, a console from which he has not been separated since he was very young and on which, whether with friends or alone, he has always prioritized football video games.

Beyond entertainment, the Spaniard has always made a routine of all the details. So much so that every time he had to play his favorite tournament, Roland Garos, Nadal did everything possible to repeat his stay at one of the hotels of the Mallorcan chain Meliá, specifically the Meliá Paris Tour Eiffel.located next to the Trocadero gardens in the French capital.

Thus, for trips from the hotel to the Philippe Chatrier, The Spaniard and his team always insisted on repeating the journey with the same driver at the wheel.. An effort, one more, to demonstrate the personality, both on and off the track, of who has been the best Spanish athlete of all time.