Tag Archive for 'Nadal'
Nadal reminds us that his philosophy is, “I don’t let go, I look for the solution in every moment, we see how far my opponent can go, he has to give his best to win.”
To achieve this mindset, we need to orient young people to:
- Plan, monitor and adjust their thoughts more in relation to different tasks.
- Focus on the task, improve goal monitoring and willingness to change strategy after a negative result.
The role of the coach:
- Encourage reflection and provide strategies for improvement after mistakes. Strategies may involve technical aspects or the demand for more effort and persistence.
- Show enthusiasm, with high interaction, defined goals and supportive feedback.
Nadal Mindset
1 “Losing is not my enemy, fear of losing is my enemy” .
2. “Success is not winning, but everything you have fought for.”
3. “I admire the mindset in sports more than the physical aspect because physical performance is much easier to practice than mental.”
4. “Things don’t change on their own, you have to make them change.”
5. “When you want something with enough intensity, no sacrifice is too great.”
6. “You work mentally when you go out on the court every day and don’t complain. When you play badly you have problems or suffer…. You put on the right attitude, the right face and don’t feel negative despite problems that are happening to you.”
7. “Family is very important, they make me feel good every day, because if I won, when I started to become famous, the relationship with my friends and family did not change.”
8. “Sustaining means accepting. Accept things as they are and not as you would like them to be, and then look forward, not backward.”
9. “There are times when things are going well and others when things are not so good. Defeat and victory are part of our lives. We live with them on a daily basis, and we have to accept both equally.”
10. “Realizing what you have dreamed of makes you happy, but more importantly it makes you happy to remember the effort.
(From Lluis Crespo Casado)
Besides having a die-hard psychology maybe this is the most important secret of Nadal’s success: “I went through a lot of hard times, a lot of days of hard work without seeing the light, but continuing to work and getting a lot of support from my team and family.
“I went through a lot of challenging moments, a lot of days of hard work without seeing a light there but still working and receiving plenty of support from my team and family,” he told reporters of what sparked that emotional reaction.
“So a lot of conversations with the team, with family about what can happen or what will happen if things continue like this, thinking maybe it was a chance to say goodbye. That was not a lot of months ago.
“To be where I am today, I can’t explain in words how important it is to me in terms of self-satisfaction and being thankful for the support.”
“Every single day. For a lot of months, sometimes I went on court with the team and was not able to practice for 20 minutes, nowadays for 45 minutes, and then sometimes I was able to practice for two hours. It was very difficult to predict every single day and I was working with the doctor, trying to find a solution.When if he was over his injury, Nadal said: “Well, it’s difficult to think about it now, but, you never know.
“As I say a lot of times, when could you comeback from injuries that, unfortunately I know about it very well, things are always difficult and you need to go day by day.
“You need to accept the mistakes. You need to forgive yourself when the things are not going the proper way, because that’s the only way.
“You know at the beginning the things are going to be difficult.
“Of course, you will not have the best feelings sometimes on court, but staying positive, playing with the right energy and, of course, being on the tour, practising with the guys and winning matches, for sure, helps and last week had been important for me.
A question to Nadal: “Why do you never throw the racket?”
Answer: “Because as a child I was taught that you do not. It’s me who’s wrong; not the racket”.
Sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones!
Play to be the most competitive. This seems to be the purpose of Nadal, and not to become the No.1 again or exceed Federer for number of victories.
Nadal plays tennis because he likes this sport and he is constantly striving to keep this opportunity as long as possible. He understood and integrated in him that to win you don’t have to worry about winning, but only the best diet for him, the best training for him, the best self-care for him determine the most competitive man on the court.
What happens before the match determines what he will do in the court. The game is the peak of this preparation aimed at experiencing the maximum pleasure in demonstrating to themself and the world his competitiveness.
Nadal says that tennis is a difficult and lonely sport in which the mental aspect is dominant over everything else. It’s a description of this game, profession, explaining in a few words how hard it’s to be successful in court, and contains in itself the reason why so many young players leave but very few become high-level players, and became part of the top 100 in the world. Tennis is a sport that challenge the self-confidence, because at the end of each game one loses and one wins and this is repeated many many times, spaced a few seconds apart. Submit themselves to this subtle torture it’s what the players love and hate, but when you are in this meat grinder of ups and downs, which stimulate contrasting feelings only few resist the temptation to give up and maintain high confidence in themselves .
I like to call “majestic” Nadal’s match vs Ferrer. Nadal showed great anger on every shot without ever having hurry to finish. The expressions on his face are there to witness it.
La partita tra Nadal e Ferrer terminata a favore del primo per 7/6, 6/0, è l’esempio di come un match si vinca e si perda a causa della mente. Nel primo set Ferrer è sempre stato in vantaggio, anche se di poco, giungendo sino al tie break e poi ha perso facendo 48 punti contro i 50 di Nadal. A questo punto la reazione sarebbe dovuta essere, “Ho perso di pochissimo, gioco alla pari anche il secondo set.” La storia è stata nei fatti esattamente l’opposto: 6/0 per il vincitore. Non si può attribuire questo risultato disastroso a una caduta nel fisico. Sarà stato anche stanco, ma è apparso mentalmente esaurito, un giocatore così forte non può accettare di essere umiliato sul campo. Non sappiamo cosa abbia pensato in quei momenti, ma una partita persa in questo modo lascerà un segno profondo in Ferrer. Perdere fa male, ma perdere in questo modo, senza essere mai stati competitivi nel secondo set, crea delle crepe nella fiducia che non è facile eliminare. I giocatori lo sanno, puoi cercare di mascherarlo agli altri ma sai che hai ceduto, che non hai reagito, questo è il ora il suo problema. Dovrà darsi da fare per liberarsene.
La mente è importante ma non può aiutare a vincere quando non si è in forma. La prova di Nadal nella finale degli Internazionali di tennis è stata una prova in cui Nadal si è trovato sempre a vincere il set successivo a quello messo a segno da Djokovic. A mio avviso è stato un esempio di quanto forte è il desiderio di restare attaccati all’avversario anche quando non si è in condizione di battersi al massimo delle proprie possibilità. Nadal non ha mai rinunciato e Djokovic ha dovuto giocare al meglio per vincere questo match. E’ stato un ottimo esercizio di tenacia e di espressione di quello che dovrebbe essere l’atteggiamento migliore da mettere in campo anche quando non si è in piena forma.
