Rafael Nadal

I have lived my whole life with high intensity.

More than anything, believe that you can win.

I’m only superstitious on the tennis court.

I was passionate about soccer. I still am. Odd, though – playing soccer always made me much more anxious than playing tennis. On soccer days, I’d be out of bed by 6 in the morning, all nervous. But I was always calm when it was time for a tennis match. I still don’t know why.

I’ve stayed calm when I’m winning and I’ve stayed calm when I’ve lost. Tennis is a sport where we have a lot of tournaments every week, so you can’t celebrate a lot when you have big victories, and you cannot get too down when you’re losing, as in a few days you’ll be in the next tournament and you’ll have to be ready with that.

I was shy when I was a kid, I was very shy, but now I think I’ve improved a lot. I can speak OK with the media and with the people. My English is still bad but I feel a little bit better now than before.

I only ever run when there’s some point to it – say, if it’s in a game of tennis.

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.

I was passionate about soccer. I still am. Odd, though – playing soccer always made me much more anxious than playing tennis. On soccer days, I’d be out of bed by 6 in the morning, all nervous. But I was always calm when it was time for a tennis match. I still don’t know why.

I have lived my whole life with high intensity.

You fight, you try your best, but if you lose, you dont have to break five racquets and smash up the locker room. You can do those things, but when youve finished, nothings changed. Youve still lost. If something positive came from that, I probably would do it. But I see only negativity.

I think I am a complete player. I can play well on all the surfaces. For me, the clay might be easiest, but I am not a specialist on clay.

So this is it. Match point for eternity.

The glory is being happy. The glory is not winning here or winning there. The glory is enjoying practicing, enjoy every day, enjoying to work hard, trying to be a better player than before.

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

I’m really, really emotional.

I tried to find a solution to the problem that I had, tried to find a way to start playing better.

I like fishing. Not actual fishing – I like the peace and quiet of being at sea. It’s different.

I go to the gym, I swim daily and from time to time I meet with friends and do extra-curricular stuff.

Andre Sa is playing close to his potential – maybe even above it.

The philosophy of FIFA is to expand world soccer space, to spread out the world football space.