Rafael Nadal (born June 3, 1986, Manacor, Mallorca, Spain) is a Spanish tennis player who emerged in the early 21st century as one of the game’s leading competitors, especially noted for his performance on clay. He won a record 14 career French Open championships and was the first player to win 22 Grand Slam men’s singles titles.
Early life
Nadal grew up in a sports-minded family; his uncle Miguel Angel Nadal was a professional association football (soccer) player who competed in the 2002 World Cup. Rafael began playing tennis at age four, guided by another uncle, Toni Nadal, who remained his coach on the professional tour. In his early years, Nadal (who wrote with his right hand) played left-handed tennis with both a two-handed forehand and backhand. When he was 12, however, his uncle encouraged him to adopt a more conventional left-handed style. Nadal stuck with his two-handed backhand but switched to what became his signature one-handed forehand, the stroke that was credited with lifting him into the sport’s upper echelons.
Professional career: 2001 to 2008
Grand Slam singles titles
Australian Open: 2 (2009, 2022)
French Open: 14 (2005–08, 2010–14, 2017–20, 2022)
Wimbledon: 2 (2008, 2010)
U.S. Open: 4 (2010, 2013, 2017, 2019)
Nadal, who officially turned professional in 2001, had appeared in only one Grand Slam tournament as a junior competitor when he reached the semifinals at the 2002 Wimbledon Championships. He began his professional career in earnest the next year, breaking into the top 50 in the world. In 2004 he played a crucial role in Spain’s defeat of the United States in the Davis Cup final. Toppling Andy Roddick—then number two in the world—in a four-set opening-day singles clash, Nadal became the youngest player (at 18 years 6 months) in the history of the international team competition to win a singles match for a victorious country.
Serena Williams poses with the Daphne Akhurst Trophy after winning the Women’s Singles final against Venus Williams of the United States on day 13 of the 2017 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 28, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (tennis, sports)
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Driving his forehand with a devastatingly potent heavy topspin and covering the court with alacrity, Nadal quickly became one of the top players on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tour. He also developed a rivalry with world number one Roger Federer. In 2005 Nadal set a record for a teenage male player by registering 11 tournament victories, including a triumph at his French Open (Roland Garros) debut, when he upset Federer in the semifinals. The next year, Nadal secured five more titles on the ATP tour, including his second straight French Open win—this time besting Federer in the final. He also reached his first final on the grass at Wimbledon before falling to Federer.
In 2007 Nadal extended his victories on clay surfaces to a record 81 consecutive matches before losing to Federer on May 20 in the final of the ATP Masters Series Hamburg (Germany). After bouncing back to win his third title at Roland Garros, Nadal lost to Federer in a grueling five-set Wimbledon final lasting 3 hours 45 minutes. The two met once again in the 2008 French Open final, where Nadal overpowered Federer to win his fourth straight tournament title, tying Björn Borg’s record for consecutive French Open wins. Nadal and Federer met in a third consecutive Wimbledon final in 2008. This time Nadal won his fifth career Grand Slam title—in a five-set match lasting 4 hours 48 minutes, then the longest men’s singles final in Wimbledon history—and thus became the first man since Borg (1980) to collect both the French Open and the Wimbledon title in the same year. In August 2008 Nadal won the men’s singles gold medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing, and he took over the number one world ranking from Federer in the same month.
