Rafa Nadal last week closed the season as Davis Cup champion. An achievement that ended a difficult season for the tennis Manacor confesses that he has "lacked passion for the game"
Mental toughness, willingness to suffer, passion: everything that failed in 2011, and Rafael Nadal is between the eyes recover within three weeks, when you start the 2012 season. So without resorting to a psychologist as many elite athletes, because he is convinced he knows how to get back to what it was.
"I have a vision to overcome these past months that have not been positive," Nadal analyzed during an interview with dpa in which a crude crumbled weak points in the year that is ending. "I missed a little more passion for the game, my shots intensity, strength in my legs and mental intensity. The most important thing lacking is the mental strength that leads to everything else. "
The mental obsession is Spanish, however, rejects the possibility of a psychologist, while acknowledging for the first time, important differences of opinion with his friend Roger Federer. "I did not ever and I really do not I intend to do. I respect the work of a psychologist, of course, but not for tennis. A psychologist is not going to fix me if I want to work or continue to give the illusion of forward."
In 2011, Nadal was strange. Played ten finals, but lost seven, six of them before the Serbian Novak Djokovic, something that had never happened before in his career with any player in a season. Thus, the July 4 handed the number one Nadal had won in that great 2010 season that saw him win three of the four tournaments Grand Slam.Sin But the world number two swears that his motivation for 2012 has been preparing not happen for weeks for taking revenge for Djokovic. Nor by winning Olympic gold at Wimbledon or retrieve the number one.
"It´s a year that I inwardly I have to overcome. Neither Djokovic beat or anything like this. It is truly personally, everything else is secondary. The problem is internal, is personally want to go one step beyond again. suffer to go that little step further, that´s all. "
Nadal appeared this year, more saturated than ever, as if through a fatigue life, rather than sporty. Victim, perhaps, ambition and pressure are not always humanly tolerable. "Nothing is enough, right? Nothing is enough, not for others but for yourself. The requirement of a reality beyond itself, also one, "admits the six-time Roland Garros champion, who rejects the theory of the former German tennis player Boris Becker.
According to the three-time Wimbledon in 2011 Nadal played tactically well until the finals, but Djokovic made the mistake of insisting on his right cross upside down, the best shot of the Serb. "This is too simple. I do not think so. I have not been at the level this year, at times, and I´ve played against him when I played at other times, this is reality. "
Nadal is 25, but professionally for nearly a decade. Despite this, thinking of playing several seasons, "I hope that my remaining years here." Physical problems of Spanish are recurring, especially in the knee and foot, but Nadal´s relative. "In the last seven years much has been said that he was injured, I do not know why. A lot. It is true that I have had physical problems obviously, but if he had any physical problems could not be brave for seven consecutive years between the first two of the world. " The Spanish left-hander rejects his tremendous physical power tennis wear it more than other players.
The problem, he says, and so returns to his obsession, goes through the mental. "It is mentally, right? Everyone has their style of play, but my concentration has to be higher than that of a better Federer, Murray or Djokovic, because they have the facility to have a much more decisive blow mine. "Federer is always an issue for Nadal. Co-star in the intense rivalry that recalls the courts, their relationship is remarkably good. "I have love," he admits dpa the Spanish, who still dreams of ever playing a doubles tournament with the Swiss.
"I think it will happen someday, but evidently the years go ...", says not entirely safe, while he confesses feeling" ashamed "when surrounded by bodyguards walking in public spaces:" It is true that sometimes it is necessary go with people who protect you, but do not let me be exaggerated and shame. "Regardless of whether or not doubles match, there is a divergence between Nadal and Federer public, a whole Spanish and Swiss novedad.El not agree on the path to be taken by courts, and that includes the name of the successor of Adam Helfant as head of the president´s advice ATP.Federer players, Nadal is the vice president.
So far, no differences aired in public, but that ended at the Masters in London, where the Swiss raised positions Nadal.Por different from that, before the Spanish fly to Seville for the Davis Cup final against Argentina they met to try to iron out differences in the ranking system and the complaints about the length of the season, that the recent U.S. Open led to some players, including Nadal, suggested the idea of a boycott. "He has his ideas as chairman, I have other self as vice president, of course. Not because I have some ideas will be bad or because he has other bad. You have to argue them. Why no one likes the ranking of two years and Why yes, why you do not want to boycott ... And I do not want, it will not pass any kind of boycott, at least now it is far "