49 Fun Facts About Rafael Nadal

Which fellow Spaniard was Nadal's doubles partner at the Paris 2024 Olympics?

Carlos Alcaraz, then 21, was making his Olympic debut. The pair won two rounds before Americans Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram beat them 6-2 6-4 in the quarter-finals.

Whose six French Open men's titles did Nadal overtake?

Björn Borg won his six between 1974 and 1981. Nadal passed him in a rain-hit 2012 final that had to be finished on the Monday, and ended his career with 14.

Which title did Nadal never win, finishing runner-up in 2010 and 2013?

ATP Finals: he played the season-ending event 11 times and won 21 of 39 matches, but lost the 2010 final to Roger Federer and the 2013 final to Novak Djokovic.

Which uncle introduced Nadal to tennis and coached him until 2017?

Toni made the young Rafa pick up the balls and sweep the courts after group sessions.

Nadal's uncle Miguel Ángel played which sport professionally?

Football: Miguel Ángel Nadal played at three World Cups for Spain. Rafa was a promising young striker himself until he had to choose between the two sports.

As a boy, Nadal hit which shot with two hands until his uncle told him to use one?

Forehand: on his uncle's advice it became a one-handed, left-handed shot, his signature. He writes right-handed, and his backhand stayed two-handed.

In 2005 Nadal became the first male teenager to win a major since whom?

Pete Sampras won the 1990 US Open at 19. Nadal turned 19 during the tournament, beating world No. 1 Roger Federer in the semi-final on his birthday.

Which Argentine did Nadal beat in the 2005 French Open final?

Mariano Puerta won the first set on a tie-break but lost in four. He failed a drugs test taken after the final and was handed an eight-year ban, later cut to two on appeal.

Nadal's 81 consecutive wins on clay ended in 2007 at which tournament?

Hamburg: Roger Federer ended the record run in the final there in May 2007, but Nadal beat him in the French Open final the following month.

Where did Nadal and Federer play the 2007 'Battle of Surfaces' on a half-grass, half-clay court?

Mallorca: the court in Palma took 19 days to build, and worms ruined its grass three days before, so turf was cut from a local golf green. Nadal won a final-set tie-break 12-10.

Nadal's near-dark 2008 Wimbledon final was Centre Court's last before which change?

A roof was being fitted to Centre Court. Rain kept stopping the final, which ended after 9pm in light so poor that it was nearly held over until the next day.

Nadal first became world No. 1 in August 2008, the day after winning which event?

Beijing Olympics: he beat Chile's Fernando González for gold on 17 August and woke up as No. 1 the next morning, ending Roger Federer's record 237-week reign.

Which French World Cup winner handed Nadal the Olympic flame at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony?

Zinedine Zidane passed him the torch, and Nadal carried it along the Seine by boat with Serena Williams, Carl Lewis and Nadia Comaneci.

Who ended Nadal's 31-match French Open win streak in the 2009 fourth round?

Robin Söderling, a Swede who had never reached the second week of a major, won in four sets. Nadal beat him in the following year's final without dropping a set all tournament.

Nadal completed his career Grand Slam by beating Djokovic in the final of which event?

2010 US Open: he had retired hurt from that year's Australian Open quarter-final, then won the next three majors. At 24 he was then the youngest man in the Open Era to own all four.

Nadal's personal logo, worn on his match clothing, shows the stylised horns of which animal?

Bull: the two lightning-bolt horns play on his 'Raging Bull' nickname. His backroom team wore the logo on T-shirts at his final match in 2024.

What were an exhausted Nadal and Novak Djokovic brought during the speeches after the 2012 Australian Open final?

Chairs: after 5 hours 53 minutes, then the longest Grand Slam final ever played, both men were struggling to stand. The match had ended at 1.37am.

Nadal publicly criticised which surface change at the 2012 Madrid Open?

Blue clay: he called it too slippery after his first ever loss to Fernando Verdasco and threatened to skip the event. The next month the ATP banned the surface for 2013.

Who, ranked 135th, beat Nadal in the first round of Wimbledon 2013?

Steve Darcis won in straight sets, Nadal's first opening-round defeat at any major. It came only weeks after he had won a record eighth French Open.

Nadal won his 10th French Open, 'La Décima', in 2017 by beating whom in the final?

Stan Wawrinka had won all three of his previous major finals but took only six games here. Nadal became the first player in the Open Era to win one Grand Slam event 10 times.

Nadal pulled out of a 2022 Wimbledon semi-final with a torn abdominal muscle, sending which player into the final?

Nick Kyrgios got a walkover into his first Grand Slam final. Nadal had torn the muscle while beating Taylor Fritz in five sets, ignoring his father's pleas from the stands to quit.

Nadal's 14th French Open title in 2022 came against which finalist?

Casper Ruud, who had trained at Nadal's own academy since 2018, lost in straight sets. Two days after turning 36, Nadal became the then-oldest men's champion at the event.

From what position did Nadal come back to beat Daniil Medvedev in the 2022 Australian Open final?

Two sets down: he won 2-6 6-7 6-4 6-4 7-5 in 5 hours 24 minutes for a then-record 21st men's major, months after a foot injury had threatened his career.

Who beat Nadal in his last French Open match, in 2024?

Alexander Zverev: unseeded after a long injury lay-off, Nadal drew the fourth seed in round one and lost in straight sets, only his fourth defeat there.

Federer's farewell match, partnering Nadal, came at which event?

Laver Cup: in London they lost to Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe after holding a match point, and Nadal could not hold back the tears. He had led their rivalry 24–16.

What did Nadal say he took before every match?

A cold shower: in his 2011 autobiography he called it 'the point before the point of no return', and said he felt his power and resilience grow under it.

At 14, Nadal refused a tennis scholarship that meant moving to which city?

Barcelona: the Spanish federation wanted him to train there, but the family kept him at home. His uncle refused to believe a player had to leave home to become great.

With whom did Nadal win Olympic doubles gold at Rio 2016?

Marc López and Nadal beat a Romanian pair in a three-set final. Rio was Nadal's comeback: a wrist injury had forced him out of that year's French Open and Wimbledon.

Nadal beat which American in the 2004 Davis Cup final?

Andy Roddick lost in four sets on clay in Spain. To play the 18-year-old, Spain had left Juan Carlos Ferrero, a former world No. 1, out of the singles.

As of 2024, which three men had completed the career Golden Slam in singles?

Nadal, Agassi and Djokovic: Novak Djokovic was the last to get there, finally winning gold at his fifth Games, aged 37. Among women, only Steffi Graf and Serena Williams had done it.

Whose record for consecutive weeks in the ATP top 10 did Nadal break?

Jimmy Connors held the old mark. Nadal's run reached 912 weeks, from April 2005 to March 2023, and ended only when an injury at the Australian Open kept him off the tour.

Which racquet brand did Nadal use throughout his career?

Babolat: the French firm had made strings since 1875 but launched its first racquets only in 1994, seven years before Nadal turned professional.

Which car maker signed Nadal as its global brand ambassador?

Kia's Spanish arm signed him in 2004, a year before he won his first major, and the firm made him its global ambassador in 2006.

Which luxury watchmaker built an ultra-light wristwatch for Nadal to wear during matches?

Richard Mille lent him one for the 2012 French Open. It was stolen from his Paris hotel room after the final and found a day later beside a railway track, and a barman at the hotel was arrested.

Nadal became a shareholder in which Spanish football club in 2010?

RCD Mallorca was in administration when Nadal and an uncle took 10% between them that July. UEFA then barred the club from the Europa League over its debts, to his public annoyance.

Which Spanish football club does Nadal support?

Real Madrid: his family had always backed them, he said, yet cheered on an uncle through his years with their fiercest rivals.

Ferocious on court, Nadal admitted in his autobiography to which lifelong fear?

The dark: he has preferred to sleep with a light or the television on since childhood. His sister Maribel called him a scaredy-cat.

Which singer's 2010 video 'Gypsy' featured Nadal?

Shakira cast him as her love interest, and the chemistry on screen was such that both of them had to deny rumours of a romance.

What title did King Felipe VI give Nadal in 2025?

Marquess of Llevant de Mallorca: it was among the first noble titles of the king's reign. The decree praised his tenacity and 'authentic simplicity' and made the title hereditary.

Where was Nadal's 2021 statue unveiled?

Roland Garros: the steel sculpture near the entrance gates freezes him mid-swing. It went up while he was still playing, and he attended the unveiling himself before winning the title again a year later.

What is 128036 Rafaelnadal?

An asteroid: astronomers at an observatory on his home island discovered it in 2003 and named it after him. It orbits in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Which Japanese anime did a young Nadal rush home from school to watch?

Dragon Ball: he ran home from school for it, and CNN later called him the Dragon Ball of tennis because his unorthodox style looked learned on another planet, like its hero Goku.

What did Nadal need throughout his 2022 French Open win to play on a chronically damaged left foot?

Numbing injections: he won the title with 'no feeling' in the foot, the legacy of Mueller-Weiss syndrome, a rare degenerative bone condition diagnosed when he was 19.

What did a ball boy famously restore for Nadal during a 2015 Australian Open match?

Fallen water bottles: he always stood two by his chair, one behind the other and aimed diagonally at the court, and insisted it was a way of ordering his surroundings, not superstition.

At which Olympics did Nadal carry Spain's flag at the opening ceremony?

Rio 2016: he had been chosen for London 2012 too, but knee tendinitis forced him out of those Games, which he called one of the saddest moments of his career.

Whom did Nadal hire as coach in December 2016, bringing a more offensive style?

Carlos Moyá, a former world No. 1, had practised with Nadal when he was still a boy. He joined after an injury-hit 2016, and Nadal won two majors the following year.

Which tournament did Nadal win an Open Era record eight consecutive times from 2005 to 2012?

Monte Carlo Masters: he won 46 matches in a row there before Novak Djokovic beat him in the 2013 final, then came back to take the title three more times.

Which Masters 1000 did Nadal never win, despite five finals?

Miami: he lost all five finals there. In the first, in 2005, he stood two points from beating Roger Federer and still lost in five sets.

Against whom did Nadal play his last professional match at the 2024 Davis Cup Finals?

Botic van de Zandschulp won 6-4 6-4 in Málaga as Spain lost to the Netherlands in the quarter-finals. It was only Nadal's second defeat in Davis Cup singles, 20 years after his first.