Toni Nadal, the uncle and head trainer for Rafael Nadal throughout his career, spoke about his nephew's recent success and his competitive rivalry with Roger Federer during an interview with Tennis Frontier.
Toni, a former professional tennis player himself, said he was happy to see Rafael back in full force after suffering a knee injury last year. Rafa has been dominant the entire season after winning almost every tournament he participated, including the French Open championships and five Masters 1000 events.
Yet, despite of the success, Toni is confident his nephew's success would not go to his head as he believes Rafa has a good foundation and knows how to keep his feet on the ground.
"In life, with a good foundation, one knows one's place in this world. It's true that my nephew plays tennis very well, and has had a lot of success in a sport that still in all is just that: a sport. But more than anything, he knows he's a normal person," Toni told Tennis Frontier, translated by Susan de Palma.
"Sometimes you'll hear people say, Well, they stopped having their feet on the ground. The whole world has their feet on the ground. Rafael had a good foundation from very young, and he knows how to handle the good moments, the bad ones, and he where he is personally," he added.
Nadal also spoke about one of his favorite moments in Rafa's career, one of which is his first victory against Federer at the Miami Masters in 2004.
"I was at home and watched it, probably on TV, a really surprising win. To play the world #1 and beat him...but in retrospect, this match showed that Rafael's game was going to be difficult for Federer," said Toni.
However, Toni added that he didn't expect his nephew to win right away against then the world's top tennis player, believing there was huge disparity in talent at that point of their careers.
"No, at that point Rafael was the youngest player on the circuit with a good ranking. People were starting to talk about him as someone to watch in the future. But it was a surprising win, to me, because, to beat Federer, at that point didn't seem normal, since there was such a difference between them," Nadal added.
Rafael and Federer are again on the verge of meeting each other for the 32nd time in the quarterfinal of the US Open Championships. But before the big showdown, Rafael must first beat Philipp Kohlschreiber while Federer has to topple down Tommy Robredo in Monday's fourth-round.
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