Rafael Nadal bids emotional farewell to long-time coach
Rafael Nadal has announced a split from long-time coach Francis Roig in a series of emotional tweets.
Nadal revealed that the working relationship between the two had come to en end with the termination of the 2022 season.
Roig has coached Nadal since he was a mere boy, coming in as his first full-time professional coach alongside his uncle Toni.
Toni has gone on to become a well-established coach in his own right and now works with up-and-comer Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Nadal has yet to announce who, if anyone, will replace Roig in the role for the 2023 season.
He won all 22 of his Grand Slam titles working with Roig, who is a quiet figure shunning the spotlight.
The content of his Tweets suggests that Roig is the one who has chosen to move on with Nadal wishing him well with his new project.
You certainly couldn’t blame Roig for perhaps thinking that his work as a coach was very much done when it comes to one of the greatest players ever to have graced the game.
“I wanted to inform you that Francis Roig is leaving the team,” wrote Nadal. “Francis has been an important person in my career and I am very grateful to him for all these years of work and friendship. When we started working together I was a child and together with my uncle Toni, we started on the circuit.
“Francis is a great coach who knows tennis very well and has helped me a lot to get better and better. I only have words of gratitude and I wish him all the luck in the world in his new project.”
Roig has been in awe of Nadal for the longest time and despite knowing him better than almost anyone else, at least on the tennis court, he was constantly surprised by the great man.
“Being by his side, watching everything, you can’t help but think that his limits are very high,” Roig told the ATP website. “I used to talk to him about numbers, and he always guessed low. Kind of like he was expecting to have a good career, but not as exceptional as the one he is producing.
“The thing I’ve valued most about Rafa is his humility, the ability to keep listening and keep improving. Or being able to win points with few weapons because he’s not playing his best tennis. And then he has something that’s very good in tournaments.
“When he finds his game, it’s rare that he loses it. And the consistency of so many years without leaving the top 10. Even the year when he was struggling, when he found it mentally difficult to compete, he was the only one who didn’t drop out of the top 10.”
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