After Rafael Nadal formally retired, Carlos Moya, his longtime coach, spoke candidly about the beginning of their collaboration.
Moya was present to witness his player bid farewell to his career as the 22-time Grand Slam champion played his final match for Spain in front of a home crowd at the Davis Cup Finals on Tuesday.
In a later, heartfelt open letter to the former world No. 1, Nadal’s coach acknowledged that he was afraid of destroying their friendship by forming a player-coach relationship.
When Nadal lost his final match to Botic van de Zandschulp at the Davis Cup in Malaga, he bid professional tennis farewell. When the Netherlands prevailed in a decisive doubles match in Spain’s knockout quarterfinal match, the 38-year-old was forced to retire.
Since their first encounter when Nadal was eleven years old, Moya has been by Nadal’s side. The two eventually became rivals on the tour, and the Olympic gold medallist later invited Moya to join his coaching camp. In an open article, the 1998 French Open now reflects on their journey.
Moya talked about it and said: “I first met Rafa when he was 11 years old, in Stuttgart. He was playing in a tournament on the Nike Junior Tour, in the under-12 category, and I was playing in the Masters 1000 in the same city. I was playing with Becker and Rafa came to the practice the day before with someone from Nike, who introduced him to me. They asked me to play 10 minutes with him, and we knocked up for a bit. That was the first time we crossed paths. I thought he was a very shy and well-mannered boy who barely spoke. Then on court, he was transformed and his intensity was so high for someone of his age.”
However, the 48-year-old acknowledged that when Nadal approached him to talk about a possible coaching collaboration, he worried about their friendship.
He added: “Later, in 2016, it was such a joy to receive the call from the team, but first I wanted to have a conversation alone with him. He was coming off the back of two seasons where things had not gone well for him; he was 30 years old and didn’t know what to do going forward. We sat down to talk at my house and he laid out his goals for me. Honestly, I thought my new role would be more difficult because it was a big change. We’d been friends for over 20 years, shared a lot together, both on and off the court, and to be his coach, I was doubtful about how it might work.”
Rafael Nadal in 2024
Currently ranked no.154, Rafael played his last match on the 19th of November when he lost to world no.80 Botic Van De Zandschulp 6-4 6-4 in the Rubber 1 of the Davis Cup (draw).
Presently, during this year Nadal achieved a compiled 12-8 win-loss record. Rafael Nadal’s most significant result of the present year was getting to the final in Bastad.
Rafael Nadal |
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