Rafael Nadal has two major achievements so far this year — he took the Wimbledon title by beating Roger Federer in an epic final and stacking up enough wins to unseat the Swiss star atop the rankings.
Now the 22-year-old Spaniard is aiming to add Olympic glitter to his trophy room, which already brims with the laurels of 30 titles including five grand-slam events and 12 Masters series victories.
”I’m going to really enjoy the Olympic atmosphere, I’m sure, and I’m out to try to win a medal,” Nadal said in an exclusive telephone interview on Sunday.
”It’s an honour to represent your country and I look forward to taking part,” he said before catching a 13-hour flight to the Chinese capital.
In addition to Wimbledon and the French Open, Nadal has won the Conde de Godo, Hamburg, Monte Carlo and Queen’s tournaments this year.
In two weeks’ time Nadal will automatically appear on the August 18 rankings as number one, breaking Federer’s record tenure of 235 consecutive weeks.
”I feel pretty much as I did yesterday morning, or last year,” he said. ”It’s another step in a long process which has taken a lot of very hard work and which really started coming together about four or five years ago.”
Nadal, who began playing tennis in the village of Manacor on his native Mediterranean island of Mallorca, said no one should underestimate Federer’s ability to fight back.
”The whole world needs to continue seeing him as the enormous champion he has been and quite definitely still is,” he said.
Nadal’s on-court style has been called muscular and aggressively physical compared with Federer’s, which is referred to as elegant and athletically economical in movement.
”People tend to talk about how my style leads to injuries, but I think they have got that wrong. I have only really had one troubling injury and that was in 2005.”
Nadal suffered a persistent left foot injury after playing at the Madrid Masters, which forced him to withdraw from several matches including the 2006 Australian Open. Blisters have also been a recurring problem.
”I have worked hard on my game and feel much better about my ability to cover the court,” he said.
Nadal, who until this year had been considered a clay-court specialist, proved the point by winning on grass at Queen’s and Wimbledon. ”Wimbledon has been an incredibly hard experience for me, but this year I managed to do it better. I managed to win,” he said.
He beat Federer in an epic four-hour, 48-minute battle of wills, winning 9-7 in the fifth set. ”Wimbledon is special, it was a very special experience for me.”
Remarkable as Nadal’s progress has been, the soon-to-be top player in the world thinks he still needs to improve his game.
”Every morning I wake up with clear goals in my head on how I need to improve my game,” he said. ”I want to become a better tennis player.” — Sapa-AP