Fans

Feb 2009

http://profiles.friendster.com/rafaelnadaltennis

Nicknamed "Rafa", Rafael Nadal has took the tennis world by storm over the past 5 years as he has made his way on the professional tennis circuit to number 2 in the world with a staggering clay-court winning streak of 60 consecutive matches.
He was born June 3rd 1986 in Manacor, Mallorca to Sebastián and Ana María. He has great sporting heritage as his Uncle is former F.C. Barcelona footballer Miguel Ángel Nadal. Between 1986 and 2001 (the year in which he turned pro at only age 15) he developed a brilliant all round game playing left-handed despite being naturally right-handed.

His rise since then has been a quick and exhilarating one. In 2002, he won his first ATP match at Majorca at the age of 15, defeating Ramon Delgado to become the ninth player in the Open Era to win an ATP match before his 16th birthday. One year later in 2003 he became the second-youngest player to be ranked among the world's top 100 singles players and earned ATP Newcomer of the Year. At his Wimbledon debut, at only age 16, he became the youngest player to reach the 3rd round since 16-year-old Boris Becker in 1984 and in July 2003 he reached the Spanish championships where he lost to Lopez.

He continued to improve in 2004 and by 2005 had climbed the world rankings to number 5. This made him the youngest player to make it into the Top 10 since Andrei Medvedev in 1993. During this season he won two ATP Masters Series events in Monte Carlo and Rome and managed an astonishing winning streak of 25 consecutive matches.

Among his other historical achievements he became the fourth-youngest Roland Garros champion in the Open Era defeating Argentina's Mariano Puerta in the final, the seventh player to win a Grand Slam in his first appearance at the event and the first teenager to win a Grand Slam since Pete Sampras won the 1990 US Open at age 19.

During this period the intense rivalry between Nadal and Federer continued to grow reaching a climax in 2006 where Nadal beat Federer four times. First, on March 4, 2006, at the final in Dubai, where he won 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Nadal then defeated Federer again at the Monte Carlo Masters 6-2 6-7 6-3 7-6 before meeting and beating him for a third time in this season at the finals in Rome where he won a close victory - 6-7 7-6 6-4 2-6 7-6.

Their last encounter came at the finals in the French Open. Federer now sought to turn around his dismal record against Nadal, while Nadal was seeking to defend his French Open title. In the least competitive of their 2006 matches Nadal won a 4 set victory and will enter the next French Open with a perfect 14-0 tournament record.

Nadal has been especially successful on clay courts. He has a 22–1 record in clay court tournament finals and is undefeated in 43 best-of-five-set matches on clay. In each of the last four years, he has won both the French Open and two clay court Masters Series tournaments. He also owns the longest single-surface winning streak in the open era, having won 81 consecutive matches on clay from April 2005 to May 2007. As a result, some tennis critics and top players already regard him as the greatest clay-court player of all time.

On October 18, 2008, Nadal clinched the year-end World No. 1 ranking for 2008. The same year, he was given the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for his achievements in sports.

At the 2009 Australian Open, Nadal won his first five matches without dropping a set before defeating compatriot Fernando Verdasco in the semifinals, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(2), 6-7(1), 6-4—the longest match in Australian Open history at 5 hours and 14 minutes. The semifinal win set up a confrontation with Roger Federer in the championship match—their first meeting ever at a hard court Grand Slam final and nineteenth meeting overall. Nadal defeated Federer 7-5, 3-6, 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-2 to earn his first hard court Grand Slam title,[54]making him the first Spaniard in history to win the Australian Open, and the fourth male tennis player—after Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander and Andre Agassi—to win Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces.