Rafael Nadal
Spanish professional tennis player, currently ranked No 3 in the world.
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"He is like a beast, an animal, on the court. He's very strong and he's very well prepared."
To be honest, I haven't felt at my best since this tournament began. I didn't feel good with the court or the balls. But those are excuses. You have to accept when you don't play well and somebody else does.
If you are playing bad you are going to lose here, on clay, on ice, or on the beach.
"He has never broken a racket in anger. It would be showing a lack of respect to people who actually have to buy the equipment to play the sport."
I felt like what I saw was the old classic Rafa on clay hardly losing sets and matches. That's what we got from him. That's why it's going to be incredibly hard to beat him here at Wimbledon.
I just wanted to see how the shorts felt again.
In your career you have a lot of good moments and bad ones. The important thing is to have enough motivation to keep working all the days with humility and trying to be a better player than before. I am going to try to continue doing this."
Everybody likes to say that Roger Federer is the Greatest Player of all time because its so nice to watch him play...but you have got to throw in Nadal's Mind as well...and That's the GREATEST OF ALL TIME!!!
"Almagro ... is a guy that's won like 11, 12, clay court titles, won them all on clay. The guy's very, very good clay-court player.I don't think he's ever played better than he played - and he still can't win a set. Like how discouraging it is to play Nadal on this surface.Ah, God, I have seen him a thousand times. I just watch this guy and it's hard to even know where to begin to pick one thing.The way he's improved his game, like his serve, the parts of his game where he can move forward, his volley, the defensive ability he's got to track down balls and just make you play extra shots.And the way he sort of slides into balls and puts away a shot - shots that seem like impossible when I was playing - it was unheard of."
It's impossible to explain what I felt in that moment, just very, very happy to win this title. For me, it is a dream to play in this tournament. But to win, I never imagined something like this.
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