Rafael Nadal is extremely important to Andy Murray’s development as a professional tennis player after a chance meeting between the pair as teenagers.
Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal’s rivalry was exceptional on the court, but the pair remained firm friends away from it.
The two men made up the so-called ‘Big Four’, alongside Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, as the quartet dominated the sport for over a decade.
Nadal and Murray are so close that the Scottish star puts much of his career down to a meeting with the Spaniard when he was 14.
Andy Murray took tennis seriously after meeting Rafael Nadal
Murray first met Nadal at a Spanish training camp when the Scot was 14 and the Spaniard was 15. The King of Clay bragged about training with tennis icons, which worried Murray about his own development.
‘This guy was telling me he practised with people like Carlos Moya, who had been world No 1,’ said Murray to The Daily Mail.
It got Murray to thinking about his own career at age 14 and how far behind he was from the future King of Clay.
“I never got the chance to practise with Tim Henman,” said Murray. “I didn’t even meet him properly until I was 16.”
The star spoke to his mother and asked to move to the Sánchez-Casal Academy in Catalonia, the very same place Nadal was training.
“He was able to practice so much more than me and hitting with Top 100 players when he was 14/15, I knew instantly I would have to change my set-up in the UK,” said Murray to Hello! (h/t to Tennishead).
“I called my mum that night and told her I’d made my mind up, I was moving to Spain!” continued the two-time Wimbledon winner.
His parents stumped up the fees, with help from the LTA and several sponsors, and Murray’s ascent to superstardom began.
Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal’s head-to-head
Just a year apart, Murray and Nadal’s tennis careers coincided often, with the pair playing each other on tour 24 times between 2007 and 2016.
The Spaniard had the upper hand on his Scottish counterpart, winning 17 of their matches together including their first five.
Murray only beat Nadal on clay on two occasions, at the Madrid Open in 2015 and 2016. Murray, bizarrely, never beat Nadal at Wimbledon.
The Scottish star never managed to beat Nadal on his way to Grand Slam success either during his US Open and Wimbledon wins in 2012, 2013, and 2016.