Rafael Nadal: "I can be very happy without playing tennis"

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer played an exhibition in Cape Town last Friday in front of nearly 52,000 spectators. The Spanish champion was impressed with the welcome he received in South Africa and hopes to return to this country in the future. During his time there, the 19-time Slam champion was interviewed by The National to talk about his career.

“I don’t consider that I had to sacrifice a lot of things to become a tennis player because I enjoyed always this process. You’re in a permanent state of learning. You need to be open and with the eyes and mind very open to see what’s going on around you and take the good things, the things you like and forget about the other things you don’t like.

It’s important for me to watch around and copy the things you like and put away the things you don’t. That’s my feeling. Every day, you need to be ready to go, look around and learn something" - Nadal explained.

Speaking on his retirement, he added: “I think I have a lot of things in this life that make me happy away from tennis. Of course tennis is an important part of my life but I think I can be very happy without playing tennis. That gives me the calm that when I stop playing tennis, I will have plenty of things to do and plenty of things that are going to make me happy."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/3bsGWo7