Rafa Nadal’s Non-Verbal Communication on the Tennis Court: A Winning Behavior

Rafa Nadal makes his debut this Thursday at the 1,000 Masters in Rome against the 24-year-old Belgian, Zizou Bergs. During the week, the Spaniard has been training at a high level at the Foro Italico, with the aim of facing this tournament in the best possible conditions. With a considerable increase in the ranking -305th position in the ATP ranking-, and although far from being seeded and being exempt from the first round, Nadal performed well at the Mutua Madrid Open, where he reached the round of 16. of final.

In a rather irregular last year and a half, marked by injuries, Rafa’s absence was noticeable in tournaments. The tennis players who have shared the court with the Balearic Islander expressed their wishes for Rafa’s return to the competition. The truth is that Rafa’s career is heading towards the end. He said goodbye to the Masters of the capital in his eliminatory against Lehecka, and the tournaments in which he participates he measures too much, to be able to say goodbye to those in which he really enjoys on the court.

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Beyond his high performance in sports, Nadal is characterized by his peculiar ‘rituals’ on the court. Gestures that are repeated in each game and that are part of his routine. Thus, the way to organize the bottles in a rigorous manner, always placing them on the ground at the baseline, and making sure that the labels are aligned and located towards the side of the court where he will play. The way he walks on the court, avoiding stepping on the white lines between point exchanges, or always following a straight line every time he goes to the bench.

Without a doubt, what really defines the winner of 22 Grand Slams is the set of actions he carried out before serving. He wipes the sweat from his forehead, nose and ears, adjusts his pants, touches his nose, hair behind his ears,… A series of gestures that he always carries out before serving the ball, as well as the dribbles counts of the ball before hitting.

Infobae Spain has spoken with Cristian Salomoni, a criminologist expert in non-verbal language and director of the IIAC International Institute for Behavior Analysis, to analyze all of these peculiarities of Rafa. He confesses that “all types of mantra rituals help a lot when performing and are very non-verbal communication”: “The fact of repeating gestures, the fact of already having a winning posture, of having a posture of power and security. This makes the brain feel these habitual emotions that are very much yours, very much his.”

Salomoni assures that “in Rafa’s non-verbal communication we can see that he is a calm, introverted person”, going so far as to compare him with Djokovic, whom he defines as “pure nerve”: “They are the opposite poles of behavior.” “Rafa has a much more focused behavior and that is why all of his gestures, his facial expression, are very, very calm, very soft,” he asserts. “He is not a person who gestures a lot, he is not a person who makes many faces. Yes, he is an emotional person because, in fact, all of his gestures and all of his behavior when he wins are historic,” he explains, adding that he “has the behavior of a winner with power postures.”

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The Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal celebrates his victory against Dominic Thiem in the final of Roland Garros 2018 (REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol)

“He is a person who tries to save energy from his behavior to focus on his passion, his motivation, which is to win and be the best. So let’s say that his non-verbal behavior has helped him in this, in the sense that he has removed himself from all the paraphernalia of his communication to focus on what is important, which is his behavior on the field,” Salomoni continues.

All these types of behaviors have allowed “people to perceive him as he wants them to perceive him”: “This is the gain of communication.” “If others perceive me as I want to present myself, as I want what I want to convey, then you have won. If I want to convey passion and people see me as a passionate person, then I have won it. “Then it’s the demonstration,” he explains, to ensure that “to be passionate you don’t have to be extroverted or super effusive.” “People perceive him as a humble, motivated and passionate person. Exactly, they are the values ​​that he himself has always said are the ones he wants to transmit,” Salomoni concludes that “if they have noticed this with his non-verbal communication, it means that he is doing things well.”

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2024-05-09 16:20:00
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