Rafael Nadal
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49 free Rafael Nadal trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Rafael Nadal won the French Open 14 times, more than anyone has won any tournament, and went 112–4 at Roland Garros across two decades. He was a right-hander turned lefty by his uncle Toni, a teenager who won his first major on his 19th birthday weekend, and the man who ended Roger Federer's Wimbledon reign in near darkness in 2008. These 49 questions cover the whole arc: Manacor and the football-playing uncle, the 81-match clay streak, La Décima, the 2012 Australian Open marathon, the career Golden Slam, Olympic golds in singles and doubles, the head-to-heads with Federer and Djokovic, the water bottles and the 55-pound strings, and the off-court life of a Real Madrid fan, Dragon Ball devotee, RCD Mallorca shareholder and, since 2025, Spanish marquess. Easy questions stick to titles and home island; the expert tier asks about 2005 finalists, asteroids and wedding castles. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation that adds one more fact. Play it solo or print it for a tennis-club quiz night.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which fellow Spaniard was Nadal's doubles partner at the Paris 2024 Olympics?
Carlos Alcaraz
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.
Q 02Whose six French Open men's titles did Nadal overtake?
Björn Borg
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.
Q 03Which title did Nadal never win, finishing runner-up in 2010 and 2013?
ATP Finals
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.
Q 04Which uncle introduced Nadal to tennis and coached him until 2017?
Toni
Toni made the young Rafa pick up the balls and sweep the courts after group sessions.
Q 05Nadal's uncle Miguel Ángel played which sport professionally?
Football
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.
Q 06As a boy, Nadal hit which shot with two hands until his uncle told him to use one?
Forehand
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.
Q 07In 2005 Nadal became the first male teenager to win a major since whom?
Pete Sampras
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.
Q 08Which Argentine did Nadal beat in the 2005 French Open final?
Mariano Puerta
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.
Q 09Nadal's 81 consecutive wins on clay ended in 2007 at which tournament?
Hamburg
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.
Q 10Where did Nadal and Federer play the 2007 'Battle of Surfaces' on a half-grass, half-clay court?
Mallorca
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.
Q 11Nadal's near-dark 2008 Wimbledon final was Centre Court's last before which change?
A roof
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.
Q 12Nadal first became world No. 1 in August 2008, the day after winning which event?
Beijing Olympics
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.
Q 13Which French World Cup winner handed Nadal the Olympic flame at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony?
Zinedine Zidane
Q 21Nadal pulled out of a 2022 Wimbledon semi-final with a torn abdominal muscle, sending which player into the final?
Nick Kyrgios
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.
Q 22Nadal's 14th French Open title in 2022 came against which finalist?
Casper Ruud
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.
Q 23From what position did Nadal come back to beat Daniil Medvedev in the 2022 Australian Open final?
Two sets down
Zinedine Zidane passed him the torch, and Nadal carried it along the Seine by boat with Serena Williams, Carl Lewis and Nadia Comaneci.
Q 14Who ended Nadal's 31-match French Open win streak in the 2009 fourth round?
Robin Söderling
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.
Q 15Nadal completed his career Grand Slam by beating Djokovic in the final of which event?
2010 US Open
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.
Q 16Nadal's personal logo, worn on his match clothing, shows the stylised horns of which animal?
Bull
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.
Q 17What were an exhausted Nadal and Novak Djokovic brought during the speeches after the 2012 Australian Open final?
Chairs
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.
Q 18Nadal publicly criticised which surface change at the 2012 Madrid Open?
Blue clay
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.
Q 19Who, ranked 135th, beat Nadal in the first round of Wimbledon 2013?
Steve Darcis
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.
Q 20Nadal won his 10th French Open, 'La Décima', in 2017 by beating whom in the final?
Stan Wawrinka
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.
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.
Q 24Who beat Nadal in his last French Open match, in 2024?
Alexander Zverev
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.
Q 25Federer's farewell match, partnering Nadal, came at which event?
Laver Cup
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.
Q 26What did Nadal say he took before every match?
A cold shower
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.
Q 27At 14, Nadal refused a tennis scholarship that meant moving to which city?
Barcelona
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.
Q 28With whom did Nadal win Olympic doubles gold at Rio 2016?
Marc López
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.
Q 29Nadal beat which American in the 2004 Davis Cup final?
Andy Roddick
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.
Q 30As of 2024, which three men had completed the career Golden Slam in singles?
Nadal, Agassi, Djokovic
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.