Rafael Nadal and the importance of doing "what you have to do first"

A Spaniard from the Balearic Island of Mallorca learned lessons at a very young age that both supported and transcended his profession, lessons that tennis players at every level of the game carry with them on and off the court.

But this isn’t just another story about another lesson that tennis has to offer. It’s a story about how a boy, lover of the sea, captured the extraordinary out of an otherwise ordinary life.

“One day, I went out fishing when I could have been training,” he says. “The next day, I lost my match.”

Sounds like every other 12-year-old tennis player who isn’t holding competition at ‘life or death’ stakes.

“It’s OK,” his uncle said. The same uncle who would have a lifetime of influence from the player’s box. “Don’t cry now, there is no point. If you want to fish, you can fish. No problem. But you will lose. If you want to win? If you want to win, then you have to do what you have to do first.”

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One day, I can be at the sea. Today, and tomorrow…I have to practice. Rafael Nadal

This Spaniard didn’t come from a sports background. And he didn’t idolize athletes the way we grew to idolize him.

“My heroes were people I knew in real life,” he said.

But still he practiced.

“Tennis was transforming from something that was just for fun – a child’s game – to a real goal to do for a living,” he said after hitting with Spain’s world No. 1 at the time, Carlos Moya. “It got me dreaming…One day, maybe I can play at Roland Garros…”

Suddenly, he no longer sounded like every other 12-year-old. He was learning gratitude, persistence, grit. And the next lesson: humility.

At 17 years old, three years into his professional career, Mueller-Weiss syndrome took him from “the greatest joy to waking up the next morning not being able to walk.”

I learned that things can end in an instant. Rafael Nadal

As we know and love, the champion growing within was able to fight through, especially with his father, “the real influence” in his life, by his side.

“I am filled with incredible memories,” he said. “However, you can never stop pushing yourself. You can never relax. You always need to improve, and that has been the constant of my life. To always push the limits and improve.”

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Although accomplishments were mounting, the kid turned icon was still just a seed.

“I have been nervous before every match I ever played—it never leaves you,” he admits.

“Every night before a match, I went to bed feeling that I could lose (and also when I woke up in the morning!),” he said. “In tennis, the difference between players is very thin, and between rivals even more.”

That feeling, the inner fire and the nerves, the adrenaline of walking out and seeing a full court, it is a sensation that is very difficult to describe. It is a sensation that only a few can understand, and something that I am sure will never be the same. Rafael Nadal

While controlling physical pain became a way of life, controlling emotions is an entirely different beast. Nerves, excitement, fear, desire. When your entire life’s work builds to one match, one point, one shot, it’s easy to forget from the sidelines just how difficult it is to perform through the pressure.

“We are human beings, not superheroes,” he learns. “The person you see at center court with a trophy is a person. Exhausted, relieved, happy, thankful—but just a person.”

Just as the young boy held life lessons close on the court, lessons from a tennis court followed him in life.

"What makes you grow as a person is life itself—the failures, the nerves, the heartache, the joy, the process of waking up every day and trying to be a little better to achieve your goals," he says.

This isn’t a story about another tennis lesson. This is a story about how Rafael Nadal became the sports idol he didn’t have.

The Gift by Rafael Nadal, published by The Players’ Tribune, highlights everything the champion has learned, everything we learned from the champion who came to be, and everything we all have yet to discover in a life post Rafael Nadal, tennis player.

“The thing that I’m most proud of is that I may have struggled, but I never quit,” Nadal writes. “I simply tried to wake up every morning and get a little bit better…It didn’t always work! But I tried…I always tried.”