Francis Roig was an outstanding tennis player in the 90s, former Top 60 in singles and former top 20 in doubles, a figure with great experience, that which he has transmitted and grown as Rafael Nadal’s coach in the last 15 years.
“He was always someone different. I remember the first time I saw him,” the coach says at the outset in an exclusive interview with the Spanish newspaper “La Vanguardia” “Rafael Nadal (34) was twelve years old.
I was playing a children’s tournament at the Real Club Tenis de Barcelona. You don’t see boys like that. That intensity, the ability to concentrate, playing all the points … Rafa had all the components: he was a different child.
It burned stages in a week. At the age of seven or eight, he beat those of 17. He was a child prodigy, “adds the renowned coach.
Roig remembers the first time he saw Rafael Nadal
Few, or no one, imagined that that boy from Manacor would become a legend of white sports and that he would make history with thirteen champion trophies at Roland Garros, the tournament he won for the first time in 2005 after defeating Mariano Puerta in the final .
That year also marked the beginning of the relationship between Francis and Rafael. “Jordi Arrese (silver in Barcelona’92) said then: ‘This kid will be number one’.
I told him: ‘A bit adventurous, right …?’ “, Roig says before delving into the start of the employment relationship.” It was 2005. Jordi Vilaró and I were training Feliciano López.
We were in Australia. Toni Nadal (Nadal’s uncle and former coach) told me that he had children and could not always accompany his nephew. He asked for my help and I accepted it. Feliciano and Vilaró understood it, “explains the coach to the aforementioned media, a relationship that already has 20 Majors.
