Rafael Nadal's uncle and coach Toni Nadal sat down for an interview with TENNIS.com at the Paris Masters. Rafael reached the final of Paris before falling to David Nalbandian, the same player who defeated him in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Masters. The three-time French Open champion enters the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai as the No.2-ranked player, but has struggled with knee problems in the second half of the year.
By Jorge Viale
Q. How do you assess Rafael’s level entering the Masters Cup?
Toni Nadal: Since the US Open, he played just a few matches, and he lacked match play. The week in Paris, he was able to play some matches in a row. Rafa is not going through his best part of the season, that’s for sure, but hopefully we can make a good tournament at Shanghai.
Q. How important is physical fitness for Rafa compared to other players?
Toni Nadal: I heard this idea many times, about Rafa having to run more than others because of his style of play. It’s wrong. I don’t think he’s doing the same effort as he used to. He’s got a physical problem that prevents us from working on the physical part. That’s the problem now. He needs matches to get in shape. In Madrid, he played a normal match against Baghdatis, he improved when he faced Murray and played very bad against Nalbandian. We had planned to stay there, whatever it happened, so he played some practice matches with [Guillermo] Cañas and [Feliciano] Lopez. His first match in Paris, he wasn’t moving well. Fortunately, there were good signs in the following ones, especially against Mikhail Youzhny.
Q. You are talking about his knee problems. Is it worrying you more than you thought it would?
Toni Nadal: It worries me, but that’s a problem we have to solve. Other players have their own. Rafa has to live with that. If you are No. 2 in the world, it’s less annoying, I guess. If we were 40th in the rankings, it wouldn’t be the same. In life, you’ve got to take things as they come.
Q. How are his knees right now?
Toni Nadal: Better. He changed his insoles last year due to the [foot] injury he suffered at the end of 2005. The feet had to adapt to that. As he stepped onto new areas of the sole, he felt the consequences in his knees.
Q. What's your main concern: reaching No. 1 or holding off the up-and-coming players?
Toni Nadal: I’m not worried about Federer at all. I think the opposite: Roger motivates us, it’s a big hope we have, to become No. 1 one day, but it’s not our main goal right now. The new ones coming, they are our main concern. Not only Djokovic, of course he’s a great player, but also Nalbandian. If he’s willing to, he could become no. 1 in the world. Murray, Gasquet, Berdych, Ferrer… the new generation is coming strong and if you blink, you lose.
Q. About the No. 1 spot, your mindset could be that Federer is older, so Rafa could have the chance one day in the future...
Toni Nadal: No, I don’t think that way, because tennis changes every minute. Now we are No. 2 and then you can have Del Potro… I didn’t mention him before, but he will be in the top group soon and he could be the next no. 2. Everything is relative here. You have to give credit to where you are: being the No. 2 player in the world with Federer as the only one up there, it’s a privilege.
Q. What’s your opinion about match-fixing and the amount of players revealing they’ve been approached by gamblers?
Toni Nadal: Nobody that played Rafa has ever thrown a match and Rafa never received a dishonest proposition like that one. I haven’t seen or heard of a Spanish player, either. I don’t see anything strange in tennis. I think this topic has been exaggerated a little bit. If proof is found, then the people who do it are not doing a favor to the sport. But, of course, in every aspect of life, you can find indecent people. Tennis is a clean sport and I’ve only seen players that give the 100% of their effort.