Seeing Rafael Nadal lift the Musketeers Cup has become a habit, as if it were a routine year after year, as if that sporting feat was something easy for him to achieve every time the clay tour arrives.
But behind the legend of the king of clay there is much, much work, hard moments, crossroads that life has put to form the champion of 20 Majors. One of the coaches of the owner of 13 Roland Garros, Francis Roig, spoke about the dark times, who gave an extensive talk to the medium “La Vanguardia”
“You cannot imagine the physical and mental exhaustion that you suffer year after year. Very intense weeks, you always have to win … And yet, when the knees tortured him, he told me: ‘Let me have surgery, I’m willing to go back even starting from scratch ‘”, details the former player who was Top 60 in singles in the 90s and Top 20 in the pair mode.
Francis Roig: Surely we have been wrong many times
In Paris, in this eventful calendar, a determined Nadal arrived, focused on a single goal: to defend his kingdom. “He continued with his rituals, his schedules.
Her character kept changing. He tensed, in tournament mode. He started to play the games an hour before the start. He connected, he focused, “recalls Roig, who left a detail for all the fans of the 34-year-old left-hander and his personality, talking about the manias of the Spanish champion.
“Outside the slopes he does not have them. On the contrary. I assure you that he is neither maniac nor punctual,” he details. At the end of the meeting, Francis Roig talks about the pressure of working with an athlete of the stature of Rafael Nadal.
“I never notice it,” he says of leading this legend. “Rafa is close and transparent. Surely we have been wrong many times and he knows it. But he has never made me feel it. He runs away from problems. Day-to-day with him is very easy,” he concludes.
