Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Tennis is one against the other. When the things are
Speaker 2: going wrong, find a solution to change that dynamic, and
Speaker 2: when the things start to go well, find a way
Speaker 2: to keep going the same way. We were not able
Speaker 2: to have a conversation with the code during the match,
Speaker 2: So you are alone there and you need to survive
Speaker 2: by yourself. You need to correct yourself, you need to
Speaker 2: find solutions by yourself. So it's a mental battle about
Speaker 2: the opponent and sometimes about yourself.
Speaker 1: I'm Frantin Laqua and this is Leaders, the podcast that
Speaker 1: explores what drives the world's most influential people. This week,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with tennis legend Rafael Nadel. He's won twenty
Speaker 1: two Grand Slams, including fourteen French Opens, four US Opens
Speaker 1: to winbuidence to Australian Open, and two Olympic Golds. Oh
Speaker 1: my words, absolutely incredible from Raphael Natel. What's Away? Nadal
Speaker 1: has been called the incomparable Spaniard and a relentless competitor,
Speaker 1: and despite having retired in twenty twenty four, the tenacity
Speaker 1: that characterized his performance in the game has followed him
Speaker 1: off the court, diving headfirst into the world of business.
Speaker 1: He's growing an empire of luxury properties, training academies, restaurants
Speaker 1: and even an electric boat racing team. His latest venture
Speaker 1: is the opening of Zelfort of Ventura, the fourth location
Speaker 1: in his growing hotel partnership with Miliat Hotels, and that's
Speaker 1: where I met Nadal for our conversation. It was an
Speaker 1: opportunity to sit down face to face with the player
Speaker 1: who led the world of men's tennis for most of
Speaker 1: his career, with Nadal being the only player in history
Speaker 1: to be ranked number one in three different decades, and
Speaker 1: to ask him about the challenges behind the success, because
Speaker 1: despite his dominance, Nadelle's road to the top wasn't always smooth.
Speaker 1: We discussed how he faced career threatening injuries and high
Speaker 1: profile rivalries, how he pulled off his Australian Open twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two come back, and how he knew it was
Speaker 1: time to retire. Raphil Nadal, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us on leaders. It's very well documented that you
Speaker 1: suffered a lot of injuries. In fact, you said for
Speaker 1: your first significant injury that tennis became a race against time.
Speaker 1: What was it like living in constant fear of your
Speaker 1: career potentially ending.
Speaker 2: Will you adapted it because you have a tough injury
Speaker 2: and the hope is not very positive. For a couple
Speaker 2: of months, you don't know if you're going to have
Speaker 2: the chance to keep going. Then when you were able
Speaker 2: to come back and keep playing, you feel alive, you know,
Speaker 2: and then you adapt yourself to live with that feeling
Speaker 2: of I don't know if you're gonna be able to
Speaker 2: keep playing tennis for one, for two or for ten years,
Speaker 2: And at the end I played for sixteen more years.
Speaker 2: You know that's the true. But I went through a
Speaker 2: lot of challenges because of that first injury, but I
Speaker 2: was able to keep going and lease the part satisfaction
Speaker 2: to have the determination to find solutions to try to
Speaker 2: keep being competitive and find a way to try to
Speaker 2: have success with the new circumstances that your body presents
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Do you think it put extra pressure on you? Did
Speaker 1: you want to win even more?
Speaker 2: No? No? For me the same. The only thing that,
Speaker 2: of course effect is when you achieve things after having
Speaker 2: this issue, probably you enjoy more that victories are more emotional.
Speaker 2: You put the victory more in value for yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: because sometimes when you are on the run that you
Speaker 2: are winning. You want to keep winning. You want to
Speaker 2: keep winning. Okay, let's stop and say okay, I want
Speaker 2: to keep winning, but let's enjoy this moment. After the
Speaker 2: things that I went through, I was able to enjoy.
Speaker 2: The victory is probably more than if I will not
Speaker 2: have this issue.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and five was the year raffle On Nadele
Speaker 1: won his first French Open, but it was also the year,
Speaker 1: at just age nineteen, when he suffered a devastating foot
Speaker 1: injury that followed him for the rest of his career.
Speaker 1: Then in twenty twelve, there were knee problems, in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two he was on crutches, and finally in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three he faced a hip injury, which ultimately ended
Speaker 1: his career. Now, for most people, this level of adversity
Speaker 1: would have stopped them playing, but not in Nodule. Did
Speaker 1: you ever feel invincible?
Speaker 2: No at all. No. I always had doubts, and for me,
Speaker 2: the doubts are good. Why for me at douts are
Speaker 2: positive because allow you to go on court knowing that
Speaker 2: I need to improve. Doesn't matter if I am having
Speaker 2: success today, I need to be better to try to
Speaker 2: keep having success. Tomorrow. That's doubts. The people that need
Speaker 2: to lose to know that they have to improve things,
Speaker 2: they don't have doubts.
Speaker 1: You have to have doubts, but also not let those
Speaker 1: doubts cripple you because you have to perform. This is
Speaker 1: true for any leader, for anyone that wants to be
Speaker 1: the best at what they do. Like, what's the right
Speaker 1: balance between doubts and I guess bravado.
Speaker 2: Of course you can have doubts or over doubt, but
Speaker 2: doubts in terms of asking yourself if what you are
Speaker 2: doing is enough for me, are positive because if not,
Speaker 2: it's easy to say, Okay, I am winning, I'm super good,
Speaker 2: Okay I keep practicing, but you lose this feeling of
Speaker 2: going concord every day with the motivation and determination to
Speaker 2: improve something. And for me, as a personal feeling, go
Speaker 2: on court just for practice to be fit. Never work,
Speaker 2: but well for me, never motivate me enough. My motivation
Speaker 2: was always going concord with the determination to improve something,
Speaker 2: and that really attracts me.
Speaker 1: Tennis is often thought of as a solo sport, but
Speaker 1: you can't overlook the power of rivalries. No doubts were
Speaker 1: most notably was no Djokovic and Roger Federer. But what
Speaker 1: role did these rivalries actually play motivating him? You really
Speaker 1: also captured the imagination of people because of the rivalries
Speaker 1: and also friendship with Jokovic and Roger Federer. What was
Speaker 1: that like?
Speaker 2: The rivalry have been a healthy rivalry from my point
Speaker 2: of view, with huge respect between each other and putting
Speaker 2: in perspective that we shared a lot of pressure moments
Speaker 2: fighting for trying to be the best.
Speaker 1: Did they make you better?
Speaker 2: Without a doubt? Yes, we pushed each other to the
Speaker 2: to the limits. Our rivalries help us to improve our
Speaker 2: our level of tennis, our mentality, our level of bringing
Speaker 2: our possibilities to the limit because we knew that if
Speaker 2: we were not doing the things more or less the
Speaker 2: perfect way almost every day, the other will be better
Speaker 2: than us.
Speaker 1: It's amazing you as had this friendship of court.
Speaker 2: I think it's normal than wish when you shared a
Speaker 2: lot of moments with your rivals, you have some love
Speaker 2: for them because you are fighting for the same thing
Speaker 2: all the time and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: we are achieving our dreams. So why we need to
Speaker 2: fight in a negative way. We need to fight in
Speaker 2: the tennis court as a players, it must.
Speaker 1: Be very difficult to be at the top of your
Speaker 1: game and with the pressure. Not many other people understand.
Speaker 2: We had pressure, yes, because we have some attention. Because
Speaker 2: tennis is is it difficult to support the way that
Speaker 2: the score is going. You will be never relaxed because
Speaker 2: you can lose in any situation. No, and you can
Speaker 2: come back from every situation. And we are very lucky
Speaker 2: people that we achieve what we wanted to achieve, in
Speaker 2: my case, much more than what I ever dreamed. So
Speaker 2: I can't complain a lot. And we had pressure, yes,
Speaker 2: but everybody has pressure. For us, our pressure was healthy pressure.
Speaker 2: Some people have not healthy pressure, dramatic pressure.
Speaker 1: When you say you know you've achieved much more than
Speaker 1: you thought you would, was there a moment that crystallize
Speaker 1: that for you where you thought, actually, I'm exactly where
Speaker 1: I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: I always felt myself very lucky person. I was able
Speaker 2: to win a Master thousand, then a Grand Slam, then Olympics,
Speaker 2: then more Grand slams. I had a professional tennis career
Speaker 2: of twenty or twenty one years, having an injury that
Speaker 2: almost retired myself when I was nineteen, So what else
Speaker 2: can I ask.
Speaker 1: I mean twenty two Grand Slams given all of the injuries,
Speaker 1: how do you flect back on that?
Speaker 2: For me, when I talk about victories, I don't put
Speaker 2: the injuries on perspective. I want twenty two. No, I
Speaker 2: don't want to create a fielding that. Okay, if I
Speaker 2: will not have the injuries, I will achieve more. No,
Speaker 2: that's what I achieved.
Speaker 1: After the break Ruffle and Adele talks me through one
Speaker 1: of the biggest comebacks of his career. Cast your mind
Speaker 1: back to January twenty twenty two. We're in Melbourne. It's
Speaker 1: the Australian Open final, Ruffel and Nadal versus Daniel Medvedev.
Speaker 1: It's off to a bad start from a duck. He
Speaker 1: loses the first set and the second set. He has
Speaker 1: to win the third to stay in the game. In
Speaker 1: a key moment, Nadal falls behind on his own serf.
Speaker 1: It's not looking good, but he saves three breakpoints. The
Speaker 1: tide turns, the momentum changes, and after five hours and
Speaker 1: twenty four minutes, Nadal clinches victory. The comeback is a
Speaker 1: masterclass in crisis management. Reminded of what Nadell told me
Speaker 1: about how in ten is you can come back from
Speaker 1: the brink. Unlike any other sport, I want to tap
Speaker 1: into the mind of the champion and understand how he
Speaker 1: engineered the victory. There's some exceptional matches that you've done.
Speaker 1: One of them was the Australia final in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two against Madvidev. Talk to me about that final. So
Speaker 1: you're losing by two sets and something happens between the
Speaker 1: second and the third set. What were you thinking?
Speaker 2: Nothing happened because the change was in the second In
Speaker 2: the second set, even if I lost that second set,
Speaker 2: that the match already changed because the first set was
Speaker 2: very clear for him, he was way better than me.
Speaker 2: But then in the second set, the feeling was different.
Speaker 2: I had a big chance to win that second sept.
Speaker 2: But I lost that second sept. Of course, that was
Speaker 2: a heartbreaking moment because I came back in Australia after
Speaker 2: six months without playing on the tour for the food
Speaker 2: So for me, it was it was difficult to imagine
Speaker 2: myself coming back in a final against a great player
Speaker 2: like Medvedev. At the same time, I was thinking, okay,
Speaker 2: I was very unlucky in Australia during all my tennis career.
Speaker 2: It's very difficult because physically I don't know if my
Speaker 2: body will hold for the next three sets. But in
Speaker 2: the other hand, I had Okay, I was very, very
Speaker 2: unlucky all my life, so maybe this day will be
Speaker 2: the opposite. So I was just was trying to give
Speaker 2: me to give myself a chance all the time.
Speaker 1: You make it sound very easy. It's not right. If
Speaker 1: you're losing in such a big important game. You must
Speaker 1: have a way of turning around, of saying, actually, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not giving up. It can't only be luck.
Speaker 2: No, it's not lack of course, no luck. You need
Speaker 2: to have some luck in every issue, in everything. In
Speaker 2: a particular moment, yes, but you need to look for
Speaker 2: that moment. You know. I need to fight for that
Speaker 2: moment now. So it's about give yourself chances all the time.
Speaker 2: And that's what I tried to do all my tennis career,
Speaker 2: and that day was not an exception. I was losing,
Speaker 2: but in my mind, don't think that after after I
Speaker 2: lose the first two sets, don't think that I will.
Speaker 2: In my mind was okay, I'm going to come back
Speaker 2: for sure. No, in my mind was I am almost dead.
Speaker 2: But I don't want to increase the problem of myself.
Speaker 2: I want the other to bid me, I don't want
Speaker 2: to help him to bid me. So let's keep going,
Speaker 2: Let's try to do things to bother him a little bit,
Speaker 2: and the dynamic of the match change it until the
Speaker 2: third After saving that dramatic moment, the match I don't
Speaker 2: say was more on my side because that's not the true,
Speaker 2: but it's more or less equal. So when you win
Speaker 2: that third set, a new match starts. And you know
Speaker 2: that as a player, you have been in that position
Speaker 2: a lot of times, and you have been in the
Speaker 2: position of you are winning, and you have been in
Speaker 2: the position that you are losing. So if you are
Speaker 2: there till the end, maybe you're going to have a chance.
Speaker 2: And that's what happened, And finally I was able to
Speaker 2: step by a step, clim the mountain and come back.
Speaker 1: So when a momentum shifts in a match, do you
Speaker 1: play differently? Do you feel different?
Speaker 2: No? But of course, step by step you start believing more,
Speaker 2: more and more. First of all, don't lose the faith
Speaker 2: when the things are going row, find a solution to
Speaker 2: change that dynamic. And when the things start to go well,
Speaker 2: find a way to keep going. The same way. It's
Speaker 2: about point after point four or five hours. That's the
Speaker 2: only way.
Speaker 1: From my point of view, It's like resilience on steroids. Right.
Speaker 2: Tennis is one against the other. When I was playing,
Speaker 2: we were not able to have a conversation with the
Speaker 2: code doing the match. So you are alone there and
Speaker 2: you need to survive by yourself. You need to correct yourself,
Speaker 2: You need to find solutions by yourself. So it's a
Speaker 2: mental battle about the opponent and sometimes about yourself.
Speaker 1: It must be also difficult because there are fans that
Speaker 1: are quite close to you. How did you handle the crowds?
Speaker 2: I think the fans always give me this extra motivation
Speaker 2: to keep practicing when I was injured, to keep fighting
Speaker 2: even a little bit more when when the match was
Speaker 2: against me. I was a very intense player in my
Speaker 2: private sessions, That's the true. No. I always practiced with
Speaker 2: very high energy with zero people watching me. But with fans,
Speaker 2: I think the adrenaline is different. Yeah, the feeling is
Speaker 2: it's completely different. It's more emotional and the amount of
Speaker 2: energy is higher.
Speaker 1: You're also well known for having rituals. Did those help
Speaker 1: for Was it comfort?
Speaker 2: I needed them to stay one hundred percent focus on
Speaker 2: what I was doing as simple as that was more
Speaker 2: that than superstitious, because I have zero riduals outside of
Speaker 2: the tennis court. I'm not a very superstitious guy, to
Speaker 2: be honest. But on the tennis court, unfortunately, I needed
Speaker 2: that routines. Why unfortunately because I would like to have
Speaker 2: the same kind of concentration without that routines. I don't
Speaker 2: like to see myself doing that routines. But I needed.
Speaker 2: I tried to avoid them, but I needed them to
Speaker 2: know that I was just focused on what I needed
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: But it's just something that's familiar I mean of doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you ask me if you want to
Speaker 2: have that or don't, I say I prefer don't. But
Speaker 2: I needed them and I was humble enough to do it.
Speaker 1: In October twenty twenty four, Raffle Nadell announced he was retiring.
Speaker 1: He said it wasn't a decision he came to lightly injury,
Speaker 1: following Adele his whole career looming over him and even
Speaker 1: threatening to take away his dream before it fully began.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to know how this slite athlete confronted
Speaker 1: the question we all face at one point, how do
Speaker 1: you know when it is the right time to go.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, you announced that you were retiring.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the moment that you decided that was
Speaker 1: it was the right time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I decided to retire in Bostad twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: I give myself around a year after my hip surgery
Speaker 2: to see if my body will come back or my
Speaker 2: hip will come back at the normal position like before
Speaker 2: the surgery. And after a lot of weeks trying and
Speaker 2: practicing and competing and without feeling myself comfortable on court
Speaker 2: and feeling myself that with that hip, I will not
Speaker 2: fight again for the things that really motivates me. Was
Speaker 2: the moment to say, okay, I am done. I need
Speaker 2: to stop.
Speaker 1: People around you were advising that maybe it was the
Speaker 1: right time to retire. Did you feel that you were
Speaker 1: retired on your own terms, that it was really your decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if probably, I didn't want to talk a lot
Speaker 2: about that, and I don't want it to be influenced
Speaker 2: for the media and for the people from outside. Now
Speaker 2: it's something personal. You need to be sure when you
Speaker 2: make that kind of decision, because when you say it's over,
Speaker 2: it's over, and you need to be one hundred percent
Speaker 2: sure that is the right moment, and if it's not
Speaker 2: your personal decision, maybe I will be today doing this
Speaker 2: interview thinking that maybe I should be playing tennis, and
Speaker 2: I had the percent sure that I make the right
Speaker 2: decision at the right moment.
Speaker 1: So when people said, look, maybe it's time to retire
Speaker 1: and you didn't agree, did you know?
Speaker 2: It never bothered me. But I try to not put
Speaker 2: many attention because they don't know the real stuff. They
Speaker 2: don't know how I feel. They don't know exactly how
Speaker 2: I am every single day. They don't know what the
Speaker 2: doctors told me and what the process is being. So
Speaker 2: I need to make my own decisions with the people
Speaker 2: that I trust the most.
Speaker 1: It feels like the new chapter is just as busy.
Speaker 1: So when your new hotel, you have a number of
Speaker 1: hotels of business interests, what do you think comes next
Speaker 1: in terms of business?
Speaker 2: I want to explore more. I just retired one year
Speaker 2: and a half ago, but have been a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff since I stopped playing tennis non stop, so I
Speaker 2: have been traveling, working hard. Of course, the Zell hotel
Speaker 2: brand is growing. Here is the fourth opening in for
Speaker 2: the Ventura, and by the end of the year going
Speaker 2: to be seven. We are in the process of spending
Speaker 2: the rafaan Altennis Academy. I dedicate time to my foundation
Speaker 2: to keep growing, keep helping more and more kids and families.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I want to explore and it's great to
Speaker 2: share all these experiences with leaders on each sector, people
Speaker 2: that are successful. So for me, it's a great experience
Speaker 2: and I'm enjoying that.
Speaker 1: You talk a lot about growth. You could be sitting
Speaker 1: on a beach.
Speaker 2: I am not the kind of person that like to
Speaker 2: wake up every morning. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 2: That's as simple as that. I need to have goals
Speaker 2: in my life. Even if I am very lucky and
Speaker 2: I could decide to do an other stuff, just stay
Speaker 2: at home without plannings, but I don't understand the life
Speaker 2: that way. I am enjoying this process, and yeah, it's
Speaker 2: intense but interesting.
Speaker 1: Last year, Maria Sharapova told Bloomberg that there's no match
Speaker 1: point in business, so she misses those designing kind of
Speaker 1: breakpoint moments.
Speaker 2: Of course, a different different approach. I mean, in sports
Speaker 2: you need to make decisions in a fraction of seconds,
Speaker 2: you know. In business it's a different stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: for example, that kind of As I said before, I
Speaker 2: think we are only in major career six hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty workers. You know, it's a big responsibility, knowing that
Speaker 2: a lot of families depends on you are doing well
Speaker 2: or not. And I am very interesting on learn more
Speaker 2: about how our company can keep growing and have the
Speaker 2: ambition to grow, but a healthy ambition, you know, doing
Speaker 2: the proper way.
Speaker 1: You played tennis for twenty three years eleven months a year.
Speaker 1: Would you miss about it the most? Do you miss it?
Speaker 2: No? Not now? No. I always would be very thankful
Speaker 2: to tennis for all the experiences that I enjoyed thanks
Speaker 2: to tennis. In my mind, in a part of my mind,
Speaker 2: I always will be a tennis player. But I finished
Speaker 2: my career because it was nothing else to offer, you know.
Speaker 2: So I don't miss tennis because I accepted. Since I
Speaker 2: make that decision, that was the end for me. I
Speaker 2: was not able to keep going the way that I
Speaker 2: needed to keep going, you know, when they had plenty
Speaker 2: of issues. So I bring my body over the limit,
Speaker 2: I think. So I am in peace with myself and
Speaker 2: enjoying this new chapter my life.
Speaker 1: Rapid fire questions. Are you ready? I hope what's the
Speaker 1: best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker 2: Copy what you like from the dollars.
Speaker 1: As a child, you played both tennis and football. Do
Speaker 1: you think you would have been as successful at football
Speaker 1: as you have been at tennis?
Speaker 2: I mean the chances are very little.
Speaker 1: Why do you say that?
Speaker 2: Because in tennis I am probably one of the best
Speaker 2: players of the history. So if I decide all the
Speaker 2: way things that I will be one of the best
Speaker 2: players of the history of football. Let's say it is
Speaker 2: difficult that you have both possibilities.
Speaker 1: Roughen Adan, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Leaders with Me
Speaker 1: Friends in Lackwall the podcast. If you like our show,
Speaker 1: please rate, review and subscribe. It means a lot. It
Speaker 1: will help more people find the show. And if you
Speaker 1: want to watch the show, please find us on YouTube.
Speaker 1: This episode was hosted by me Francis Laqua. It was
Speaker 1: produced by Atalandi Dixon, Samersadi and Moses and dam Amy
Speaker 1: Keen as the executive producer of Talk Podcasts. Sound designed
Speaker 1: by Blake Maples and Aaron Casper.