Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal is a Spanish professional tennis player,

Rafael Nadal (born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish professional tennis player, currently world No. 1 in men's singles tennis by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

In majors, Nadal has won a record 11 French Open titles, three US Open titles, two Wimbledon titles, and one Australian Open title. He was also a member of the winning Spain Davis Cup team in 2004, 2008, 2009, and 2011. In 2010, he became the seventh male player in history and youngest of five in the Open Era to achieve the Career Grand Slam at age 24. He is the second male player, after Andre Agassi, to complete the singles Career Golden Slam. In 2011, Nadal was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year.

Nadal began his 2018 season at the Kooyong Classic, where he lost to Richard Gasquet in the first round. He then played at the Tie Break Tens exhibition tournament in Melbourne, beating Lucas Pouille and Lleyton Hewitt in the opening two rounds, before losing in the final to Tomáš Berdych. At the Australian Open, Nadal recorded straight-sets wins over Víctor Estrella Burgos, Leonardo Mayer and Damir Džumhur in the first three rounds, before notching a tougher four-set win against Diego Schwartzman in the fourth round. He faced Marin Čilić in the quarterfinal, but retired in the fifth set due to a hip injury.

On 16 February, Nadal dropped to the No. 2 ranking after 26 weeks at the top when his rival Roger Federer overtook him in points. Bowing out in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, Nadal had only defended 360 of the 1200 points he had won by reaching the final in 2017. At the same time, Federer successfully defended his title and left Australia only 155 points behind Nadal. Federer then won his third Rotterdam Open and collected enough points to overtake the No. 1 position.

As tournament seedings are based on rankings, 24 of their matches have been in tournament finals, including an all-time record nine Grand Slam tournament finals. From 2006 to 2008, they played in every French Open and Wimbledon final, and also met in the title match of the 2009 Australian Open, the 2011 French Open and the 2017 Australian Open.[194] Nadal won six of the nine, losing the first two Wimbledon finals. Four of these matches were five-set matches (2007 and 2008 Wimbledon, 2009 and 2017 Australian Open), and the 2008 Wimbledon final has been lauded as the greatest match ever by many long-time tennis analysts