Rafael Nadal may no longer be a spring chicken on the Tour but he has no intention of walking away from the sport just yet, according to one of his coaches.
Carlos Moya admits that age is not on the right side of Nadal, who is currently the oldest player in the top 20 on the ATP Tour. However, he says the Spaniard is able to make up for this by his ‘intelligence’ of the game which he uses during matches. Using Nadal’s historic triumph at the Australian Open as an example where he came back from two sets down to win a record 21st Grand Slam title. That was also the first time he had won a best-of-five match after losing the first two sets since 2007.
“What Rafa is looking for is to be competitive and continue to evolve. It is true that over time you lose physique, speed or explosiveness, but you are smarter and handle situations better,” Moya told Punto de Break. “I always said that Rafa is one of the most intelligent players on the court, one of those who read the games best, the one who is most suited to having a Plan B, a Plan C… “
“I would tell you that he has the whole alphabet. If he sees that the rival has a crack or the smallest gap through which he can enter, he sees it, reads it and gets it. The (Australian Open) final is a clear example: it starts badly but then it changes, little by little. That is the adrenaline that he has inside, to see that he can still fight with the best in the world.”
Moya is a former world No.1 player himself who won the 1998 French Open. He officially joined Nadal’s team at the end of 2016 and has remained a member ever since. Also guiding the king of clay on the Tour are Francisco Roig and Marc Lopez who are also ex-professional players.
“When I arrived in 2016 he was 30-and-a-half years old, but I have a medium-long-term vision. He trusted that he would evolve in a number of ways so that he would still have a long way to go,” Moya reflected. “We had a talk and I saw him very motivated, wanting to win Grand Slams again, there I was convinced that anything could happen. I have known him for many years, I knew where there was room for improvement, so I thought it was time to change certain aspects and from the first tournament (Australian Open 2017) things went well for us.’
“There was no other, if he wanted to extend his career, he had to take risks, so the credit goes to him for always being open to change. People are not aware of the quality that he has, whatever you propose to him, he does it”.
In recent months Nadal has been sidelined from the Tour due to a flare up of a long-term foot condition he suffers from. He has Mueller-Weiss syndrome which is a degenerative disease that causes a deformity of one of the bones in the central part of the foot. At one stage last year he contemplated stepping away from the sport permanently if his issue hadn’t improved.
Fortunately for Nadal his recovery exceeded expectations with a fairytale start to the season where he has won 10 matches in a row. He also triumphed at the Melbourne Summer Set at the start of the year.
As for the future, Moya insists that the important approach is staying in the present and not getting too carried away as he brushes aside the ongoing GOAT debate between the Big Three.
“What I can assure you is that in Australia we never talked about #21,” he said in reference to the Grand Slam tally count.
“Although it was on the horizon, you knew it could happen. Talking about it would have meant more pressure than he already had. We do not feed that debate, we leave it to the press and the tennis fans. Rafa is happy with what he has, he will be just as happy if he finishes with 21 and Djokovic with 25. It’s not good to obsess; yes get motivated Obviously, he is not going to give up on 22, if the opportunity arises he will fight for him, but it is a debate that, with all of them still active, does not make much sense.”
Nadal is set to return to action next week at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco.
