Rafael Nadal

It’s not the time to look for excuses.

It’s important to have people around you with enough confidence to say if you are not acting in a good way. Normally, when you are at the top, people say everything is fantastic. Probably in that moment it is what you want to hear, but it’s best to be reminded how to act properly.

I live where I would like to live. I live in Majorca, Spain, and I am not sure there are better places.

I always like to do the things that I think are right. I am not trying to be a model, I am trying to be myself and do the right things. If what I am doing is a model, or is an example, is the right example, I am very happy, but I don’t pretend that.

I used to wear sleeveless T-shirts all the time on court, but now I’ve got a brand new look – I’ve moved on to polo shirts. Sleeveless T-shirts give you real freedom of movement and they keep you cooler in matches, but I just thought it was time for a change.

I would love to learn other languages, maybe French? My uncle speaks German so maybe also German? Chinese seems to be too difficult.

Gaudio is playing very well. Today he played at an incredible level, especially on his backhand. But I am only thinking of my own game, and of playing well.

My feeling would be that you lose something of the beauty of the Premiership by joining something not defined at the moment.

Certainly I would like to have some of the qualities of other players and obviously from Roger Federer. But believe me, there are plenty of other abilities that are important, particularly mindset and strength.

You learn their honesty, you learn their competitiveness. You learn a lot about a person. It’s not that they have to sink the putt and there’s a great deal of talent involved – but you do learn about how competitive a person is on the golf course, and frankly, how honest.

I always had the theory that the most important thing is be happy, enjoy what are you doing, and be fresh mentally.

I don’t have any idols, any heroes, nothing, no.

I swim almost every day, a thousand meters.

It’s not that difficult to play well and win titles in a team like Barcelona, but it’s in the national side where you see a player’s true class. That was the case with figures like Pele, Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane. With Spain, Iniesta has shown that he is among the best players of all time and that’s why I rate him higher than Messi or Ronaldo. Even though the latter two have incredible scoring records for their clubs, they still haven’t won anything with Argentina or Portugal respectively.

If you are playing bad you are going to lose here, on clay, on ice, or on the beach.

I think I am a complete player. I can play well on all the surfaces. For me, the clay might be easiest, but I am not a specialist on clay.

Some people get very confused about my game. They think it’s better if the court is slow, because I have a good defence. But the faster it is, the better for me. My spin is more painful for my opponents, my aggressive game works better.

When you are thrown onto the stage at 17 in such an enormous way, it becomes living on the edge because every step you take, every word you speak, every action you do becomes headline news. And it became, for me, life or death.

I play because I have fun, if I don’t have fun on the court, there is something wrong. I am just a 19 year old boy that likes to do what he likes, nothing else.

If I am not playing at one hundred percent, it is going to be very difficult for me to win.

I just try to win the match by fighting for every point, and running down every ball.