Rafael Nadal is renowned to be among the greatest tennis players of all-time. The Spanish superstar has been in the game for nearly two decades, achieving nearly every feat and a fan following that most players can only think of aspiring for. However, Rafael Nadal the person, is someone who has intrigued his supporters as he is known to be extremely private for someone having global celebrity status.
While there is no doubt that his gentlemanly and humble nature has made him win many ATP and Laureus Sportsmanship Awards, Nadal is set to win more hearts with his tales of friendship, one of which involves fellow Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez.
Rafael Nadal attends Feliciano Lopez’s farewell match in hometown Mallorca
Unfortunately, Rafael Nadal is most likely to be out of any form of tennis till January 2024. However, they say there is always a win in every loss. The time out of the game has given Nadal the opportunity to spend more time with family and friends back home, as he is otherwise travelling around the world throughout the year. Besides surely taking care of his 8-month-old son Rafael Jr., he was spotted recently supporting Feliciano Lopez in his farewell ATP match tournament in Mallorca alongside wife Maria Xisca Parello.
Much to Nadal and the home crowd’s delight, Lopez beat Australia’s Jordan Thompson in three sets on Tuesday. It made Lopez only the second player in tennis history to reach the quarterfinals of an ATP event after the age of 40, with Jimmy Connors being the first-ever to do so. Amongst other such illustrious records, in the year 2005, Lopez became the first Spanish player to reach the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon Championships since 1972.
Nadal and Lopez’s friendship
Even as Rafael Nadal went on to become more successful between the duo, their friendship has stood the test of time and potential trials. Both of them have been extremely supportive and encouraging of each other in public with Lopez having twice expressed his anguish over Nadal’s career-threatening injuries, that have plagued him over the years. Being the tournament director of the Madrid Open, which is one of the 22-time Grand Slam winner’s favourite ATP competitions, Lopez had shared a heartfelt tweet for Nadal when announcing that he could not participate in the 2023 edition of the tournament.
Nadal and Lopez have been on-court rivals naturally, with the former leading 10-4 in their head-to-head battle. However, they are more known to have won the Davis Cup together for Spain in 2003, 2011 and 2019. In 2015, when Nadal was out of action, one of the few players to have him rung up personally and keeping up with the belief that he would be ‘back stronger’, was Lopez. On many occasions, Nadal has also returned the praises, preferring Lopez to be his training partner.
Their friendship can be summed with Lopez’s words from another 2015 interview with Yahoo –
“He wants to win all the time in any game he plays. He will do anything in order to beat you. We play poker sometimes – he’s a great player, aggressive sometimes, but he’s a good poker player, I have to say,” Lopez said in an interview some years ago.
“I think Rafa went further than being a great tennis player. In the society in general, in Spain, everybody loves him as a person. The way he behaves on the court – always fighting till the end – this is what makes the connection with the people possible. He is the son that every mum would love to have.”
