Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal has taken the tennis world by storm with a winning combination of accuracy, power, speed, and court-craft.

Rafa was born in Manacor, Mallorca into a sports-mad family - his uncle had played soccer for Barcelona. He turned pro at the age of 15, and rapidly demonstrated his clay expertise by making rapid progress up the rankings, first with winning performances in the clay Challengers, and then with early success on the full ATP tour. His fellow Mallorcan, the clay supremo Carlos Moya, was his early hero and mentor. Rafa's name appeared in full in the early draws as Rafael Nadal-Parera, but then to the relief of tennis scorers and statisticians everywhere he adopted the shortened form of his name.

Despite being a natural right-hander, Rafa plays tennis as a left-hander, taking all the advantages of being a left-hander in tennis. In 2005 Rafa made his debut in the French open, winning the prestigious tournament at his first attempt.

Rafa's famous on the court for punching the air, simutaneously screaming 'Vamos' (which means 'let's go' in Spanish). He used to have the odd habit of adjusting his socks between points, but this has now been replaced with adjusting the seat of his pants!.