The instructor, who was once a top amateur player in Spain and participated in national tournaments, had hundreds of kids under his tutelage at the Manacor Tennis Club on his native island of Mallorca.
Rafael moved in the direction of the ball when I hit it to him. He didn’t wait for Toni to bring him the ball,” she says to Sport.
“Usually, a tiny child would stand and wait for the ball to reach him when I sent it to him. However, my nephew went in search of it. This was unique to me.”
That assessment turned out to be accurate. Rafael Nadal was a unique talent, and the 38-year-old went on to demonstrate it after Toni shaped him both as a player and a person.
Nadal is the only person in history to have won more Grand Slam men’s singles championships.
At the 2020 French Open, the Spaniard matched Roger Federer’s then-all-time record of 20 major wins. Novak Djokovic of Serbia later joined them on the same number when he won Wimbledon the following year.
