Andrea Petkovic says ‘fear’ was Rafael Nadal’s ‘biggest strength’ and made him the ‘greatest athlete’
Andrea Petkovic lauded Rafael Nadal for his remarkable career and explained why fear was his biggest strength.
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Rafael Nadal, Andrea Petkovic (Images via X, Tennis Majors)
Former tennis player Andrea Petkovic believes Rafael Nadal‘s apprehension of defeat helped him become a great of the game. Now that Nadal bade his farewell to tennis, Petkovic wanted him to be afraid of something else and achieve success there.
It is believed that Nadal’s biggest strengths were his athleticism, techniques, tactical intelligence, and his way of adapting. But Petkovic thinks Nadal was always afraid of losing and it forced him to push himself, and as a result, he became the ‘greatest athlete to ever play a sport with fear in his heart.’
His biggest strength had always been that he was scared. Before every match, even in the 14th year of his winning the French Open, he deeply and profoundly believed that he would lose in the first round to a qualifier. It made him run faster, work harder, try more. It’s where the intensity we learned to love stems from. It’s the source of all his being. This fear made him who he is as a tennis player.
Andrea Petkovic wrote on Substack
Nadal’s final match of his career was against Botic van de Zandschulp in the Davis Cup. He closed a remarkable chapter of his life by adding 22 Grand Slam titles to his trophy cabinet which has many other accolades.
Toni Nadal opens up about watching Rafael Nadal’s last match
No one, including Rafael Nadal, was certain whether he would be playing his final singles match at Davis Cup. Spain’s Davis Cup captain David Ferrer kept assuring that Nadal would be playing because his practice sessions had been going well.
Nadal’s uncle and his ex-coach Toni Nadal, who did not attend the farewell ceremony, was certain that Ferrer had asked Nadal to play. Toni however wasn’t happy with Spain’s defeat and believes Nadal would have felt ‘worse’ because Davis Cup is a team sport and his points were important for the team.
You suffer because, if it were an individual tournament, I wouldn’t have suffered much, but being for the Spanish team, I suffered watching his match and the doubles match because it meant defeat, it meant that Rafael’s point would have been important.
Toni Nadal said on El Larguero on SER radio
Nadal ended his career without lifting a title this year, reaching just one final at the Swedish Open. He became the second member of the Big 3 to hang up his racket after Roger Federer.
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Gouri Das
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