Rafael Nadal

You fight, you try your best, but if you lose, you don’t have to break five racquets and smash up the locker room. You can do those things, but when you’ve finished, nothing’s changed. You’ve still lost. If something positive came from that, I probably would do it. But I see only negativity.

It’s important to have people around you with enough confidence to say if you are not acting in a good way. Normally, when you are at the top, people say everything is fantastic. Probably in that moment it is what you want to hear, but it’s best to be reminded how to act properly.

I am No. 8 in the world. I am not No. 100.

I would love to learn other languages, maybe French? My uncle speaks German so maybe also German? Chinese seems to be too difficult.

I have the same bedroom I’ve always had. It’s clean and tidy when I get home, and after two or three days it gets messy and my mother nags me.

I’m really, really emotional.

If you don’t lose, you cannot enjoy the victories. So I have to accept both things.

The eyes of some of the fans at Davis Cup matches scare me. There’s no light in them. Fixed emotions. Blind worship. Horror. It makes me think of what happened to us long ago.

The guy comes up to the plate, there’s always a chance where he can get a grand slam and everybody forgets about all the times he missed.

Girls had never been important. I’d had a girlfriend or two and had liked them a lot but it wasn’t love, because my first love was tennis.

I want to be remembered as a great athlete. As a boxing champion.

Where do you go when you’re the best in the world? What’s next?

Some clubs are treated as devils, some are treated as angels.

I always wanted to be honest with myself and to those who have had faith in me.

Tennis is beautiful when you can see tactics, when players don’t just react but are able to act and think.

My feeling would be that you lose something of the beauty of the Premiership by joining something not defined at the moment.

In tennis, because of the way it’s scored, I don’t think that scoring one point out of luck is ever decisive in winning. But, of course, it depends on the moment.

If somebody says I am better than Roger, I think this person doesn’t know anything about tennis.

Playing well or playing bad, I have to play aggressive. I must play aggressive.

I haven’t lost a war. No one got killed. I just lost a tennis match.

Gaudio is playing very well. Today he played at an incredible level, especially on his backhand. But I am only thinking of my own game, and of playing well.