Thread by @jsmian

1) As tennis demi-god Rafael Nadal's quest for a record-equalling 20th Grand Slam title continues, take a moment to reflect on his human side.

This is from a 2014 FT profile by John Carlin. ft.com/content/28ff29…

2) Rafa Nadal does not believe it. He never has and he never will. And that, he maintains, is the secret of his success.

3) What does he not believe?

“The acclaim, the success. That I am as good as people seem to think, or as the numbers say I am.”

4) Why doesn’t he believe it?

“Because the moment I did it would be all over. I’d be finished.”

Finished?

“Yes. Finished.”

5) Nadal credits humility as the recipe for success.

“Look, there are guys right at the very top who are super arrogant and are super sure of themselves. There isn’t only one way, clearly...”

6) “But my way is this: when you believe things are going to go your way just because you are who you are, because you are very good, that’s when you start to get careless, when you stop working hard, when you stop fighting for every point.”

7) “You lose your intensity, and while things may go well with you for a while, because you’ve built up a positive momentum, it won’t last.”

8) “You drop your guard when you stop having doubts about yourself. I’ve always had doubts. I’ve never believed that I am very good, nor do I believe it now.”

9) “I am prepared to compete well and I know that in the moments of maximum pressure I’ll respond the right way.

But never do I think I am going to go out and win because I am better than the other player. I’ve never felt that.”

10) If there is one thing of which Nadal is convinced, it is that he would not be where he is were it not for the influence of his remarkably close, traditionally patriarchal family clan.

11) Not only does he remain in Mallorca, he lives with his parents in a wing of a home he bought for them on the sea, 10 minutes’ drive from where he was born.

12) Fame and wealth have not devoured the man. He attributes his success as much to the person he was raised to be at home as to his training as a sportsman.

13) The duality in his person is strikingly apparent in the difference between the gladiatorial tennis player one sees grunting, battling epically for every point on court and the gentle, contemplative soul off it.

14) “If there is one thing I have learnt,” Nadal says, “it is to distinguish between Rafa and Rafael...”

15) “Rafa is the famous tennis player; Rafael, the name they call me at home, is the real one, who could have ended up doing something else altogether with his life and it would have made no difference.”