10 Things Rafael Nadal Can't Live Without

Now I only have one racket inside because I am playing tomorrow so all the rackets are on the on the stringer getting ready for tomorrow. I don't need more. I'm not breaking rackets so What's up GQ? I am Rafael Nadal and here are my essentials. First item for me is the of course the phone. It's important for me when I'm traveling, being out with the family, with the friends, with the team. Most used app? Maybe WhatsApp. Yeah that's the first of everything. Well my computer. On the tennis tournaments we have a lot of free hours on the hotel so to not be all the time with the phone, read all the news, the newspaper, watch the tv. I have been watching a lot of things so I even can't remember. A documentary about the second world war. A couple of Spanish series on the laptop. That makes the things a little bit better for me so I don't know I get used to travel with the laptop everywhere and I'm still doing. Well my rackets, my bag, the racket, the shoes, all the things that I need to be to be playing tennis. I don't travel with my bag when I'm on holidays but when I'm playing tennis is something that I can't live without this bag. Honestly now I only have one racket inside because I am playing tomorrow so the other rackets are on the stringer getting ready for tomorrow. I don't need more. I am not breaking rackets so that's easy. I like the small grip because I have the feeling that when I have this the small grip on my hand I have better control of what I am doing with the hand. I can produce more spins than when I have a bigger grip on my hand. I feel more comfortable like this and it's difficult to change after all my life playing like this. Dumpers for the racket. I have some masks. I have my grips on. I have my orthotics. Some golf clubs that I have been around the world. Some vitamins. Some just seawater to be playing. Gels. I don't know. A lot of things that help me with tennis matches. Well I of course travel with my sports clothes. Without this I can't feel comfortable on court so that's something that I can't forget. I always bring myself casual clothes because I like to go out for dinner. You know to forget to distract yourself a little bit about all the routines. So we are always trying to go out for dinner to know different places and of course if we are able to go to party to celebrate something important it's good to have it there. We don't have many off days when we are traveling because we practice almost every single day and we do recover but when I am able to have some days off I like to know a little bit the city or for example I'm here in Melbourne and we went to the beach one day to have lunch in a restaurant. I have my iPods with me almost all the time because when you are on the plane when you are just before the matches it's unusual with the music because I like almost everything. I can listen to opera. I can listen to reggaeton. I can listen to classic music or pop rock. It's true that the electronic music is not my one. That's the only music that I can't but the rest of the things depends on the on the moment and depends on the mood that you have. My passport. Without the passport I don't go anywhere so it's something that is always in my bag ready to travel. Well of course I like to be at home. We have beautiful islands close to my port. You know we have Ibiza. We have Menorca, Cabrera, Formentera so we are able to take the boat and visit that places to travel away from home. My favorite places is Exumas. Wow I needed to change the the previous one because there were no more pages available and I was not inspired but I needed to change to this new passport. To play tennis I always travel with my ten kilos. You know I am 34 and a half a lot of kilometers under my shoulders so I just need it to keep going sometimes. But that's part of the sport too and that's part of my life so sometimes this kind of stuff happens and the only thing that you can do is try to do the best in every single moment to try to recover. I can't travel without my mask. I have to I have my mask always with me with this terrible period of time that we are living. Yeah no crowd in the French Open. Roland-Garros have been just around 2,000 people in the final and before it was around 1,000-1,500 per year. Of course playing without the crowd is a different story. The energy of the crowd is a level of adrenaline, another level of intensity but you need to get used to it. Here we are in Melbourne now and Melbourne the situation is very good with this pandemic and so gonna be much more people on the crowd. But of course playing in the Grand Slam today or in every single event we try our best but of course we miss a lot the the crowd and go inside the court and feel this great atmosphere that we are used to. Well the main thing when you are a kid is have fun playing tennis. If you don't enjoy tennis it's impossible because it's a long journey to become a professional. So the first thing that you need to do is just have fun. Then of course you need to have the right people next to you. That's the key. If you don't have the right people that are going to help you the proper way since the beginning so the things become much more difficult. Not impossible but of course much more difficult. You have to demand yourself what you really need to be better and just go on court every single day with a goal. With a goal to be better. Thank you guys for checking out my essentials. I hope to see you very soon again. See you!