FB – 2003 Monte-Carlo
A 17 year old Rafa Nadal takes on the reigning French open champion in the second round of the 2003 Monte-Carlo Masters…and wins in straight sets.
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Silliness
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Wow, he plays fantastic tennis here!
He’s so lickle and his legs almost look skinny in the shorty shorts. When they show the stats at the beginning, it says that Rafa is 1.82m tall and weighs 75 kilos. So he’s grown a bit since then.
BTW, the grunting is…sublime.
His water bottle is almost as big as he is…
Hah, and he almost falls into the fridge whilst getting it!
amazing–he is so young there—skinny, but with such a round face—glad those awesome cheekbones have since emerged!!!!
P.S. LOVE the poll of Rafaisms, Miri, but it was soooo hard to pick just 2! :D
That shirt was made for him to grow into it. Yep and that bottle (LOL) I thought it was going to weigh him down. He seems to have gradually worked his way down to the little bottles nowadays. How cute was he then and how delicious he is now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We really can see his brilliance here, already he is playing clay court tennis with a skill level way beyond his years. I love his little gulp before he serves at 6:40, and that characteristic smash … he has nerves of steel, he never misses them.
Rafa looks so so young. Still very much a boy. Now very much our man.
So many things have changed since.
By the time he wins his first FO, he grows another 3cm, gains 10kg, his water bottle and his shirt shrinks, but his shorts and hair grow longer.
But the intensity, the must-return-every-ball attitude and fist pumps are still here.
I didn’t see him do the bottles placement and his pant-pulling routine, and he use to grunt more.
He did work in setting the one HUGE bottle down in a particular spot on change-overs. He also grabbed a second bottle of Gatorade looking stuff, but that just got a quick sip and then a shove back into his bag (I think).
And there’s one pants tugging shot in the video. :) He also tugs from the front when sitting down. I’ve seen him do that in later years too, but usually with a towel over his lap.
To me, his grunts sound more like yells than grunts in this.
Oh, he often “tugs from the front”, not always with a towel on his lap! Sometimes I DO wonder if his pants are uncomfortable after all.
I think it’s the undies. :)
Yeah, sorry, underpants I was meant to say… :)
Maybe Rafa’s voice was yet to break. Now he has a manly grunt.
ohmigosh baby rafa. so cute!!! and so powerful on the court! absolutely fascinating to watch even back then. i can’t imagine what albert costa must have felt, being the reigning FO champion and having been beat at a masters series on clay by the young un. and i’m trying to imagine what the tennis world would have been saying at the time about rafa’s win. phew, who could imagine the things to come from that kid.
btw yes his legs were pretty scrawny, he looked pretty tall and had a light frame. boy how rafa’s grown into a fine young man :D
“boy how rafa’s grown into a fine young man”
That sentence, for some reason, makes me blush all over. Mmmm… ;)
Ohhhhhhh such a baby!! And those sexy legs!! *nomnomnom* I love Rafa!!
And he’s already troubling people with that high bounce – look where Costa’s racket is hitting the ball!
Now wait…am I hearing the announcers correctly when they say this is his first ATP-level event of 2003? So he just rolls into Monte Carlo, qualifies for the main draw, and then casually takes out the FO champ? HA! What’s even crazier is that 2 years after this match, he goes on to win the tourney and there hasn’t been another champ SINCE!! Oh, how I miss Rafa!!!
Yep – his first Masters. He stomped on the 49th ranked player in round one, Costa was ranked 7 and then he lost to Coria (26th) in the next. Playing record for 2003.
Wow, definitely impressive. Thanks for the link!
hate to break it to you johanne, but there has been another champ this year :( i’m trying to forget too :(
who’s won MC since Rafa did in 2005?
oops thought you were talking bout FO when I was reading that sentence
are you kidding me, rafa made $4m in prize money that year!!! and only lost 5 from 49 matches. amazing little rafa.
ooops. duh. that was actually the stat for this year. that was misleading the way it reads on the website!! darn.
Actually, Rafa must have been 16 here as it was 6 years ago and he was 22 at the time of the Monte Carlo Masters in 2003 (he was 22 this year at that tourney). Just nit-picking…no matter his age, he was and is a cutie pie!!!
Woops, I meant that he was 16 in 2003 when the Monte Carlo Masters was held, and 22 this year during the tourney. I’ll nit-pick on myself! Hee hee.
Okay, it’s me again. So I wrote the above before watching the video (obviously) and it says that he’s 17. I still don’t get it because of the timing…If his birthday is June 3, 1986 and this tournament was in April 2003, it would have been before he turned 17, wouldn’t it? I’m so confused!!!
I think it’s probably a computer thing. The system doesn’t take into account the full birthday (month, day) but only the year. So for a computer, if someone was born in 1986 and the tournament is in 2003, he’s 17 years old regardless of the month he was born.
Was already a great promise in tennis, Rafa is natural talent. Fantastic!!!
Yes, definately a champion in the making wasn’t he? and all those sliced drop shots he had finesse then too, such a gutsy win, didn’t seems to faze him at all that he was playing the F/O champion and he served out the game to love, no probs! thanks for the info Miri on Rafa here, I used to live abroad and didn’t get to follow Rafa until I saw him on Eurosport in 2005 win the F/O just love these throw backs to his early career you can really see the potential he had. Just recently I think after Rotterdam, someone had asked if they thought if Grigor Dimitrov who took a set of Rafa there was as good as Rafa had been at his age, the reply was no. oh and thanx for the link too..x
What a cutieeee, our baby-faced Rafa in the making with some of the now plethora of famous tics. A few tugs on his shorts, the not so deep grunt like now ummh… and his taking off of the bandana right after the match. I did pick up a few things like spitting which I NEVER see now. And of course his going for the ball on every point. GREATNESS now refined, all for our unwavering support of this “gentle soul” with his “game face” while on court, until he anniliates his opponent and then comes the “sweet, innocent doll” that we are so inclined to wake up all hours of the night to witness his unique ability to seem like a beast during play, until the moment the bandana comes off and we have our smiling, shake of his head so his beautiful hair cascades over his “bedroom eyes” Yummmmmm!!!!! sending us into “COMPLETE EUPHORIA”!!!! Thanks for the post!
He spits frequently during clay court matches.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him spit either before!
I’ve seen him do it as part of his “getting ready to serve” routine. He spits and then rubs it into the clay along the service line. I see other players do it too. Must be something about playing on dirt. ;)
I’ve missed that, don’t have that much experience with Rafa on clay…
I’m surprised I never caught that, yet it would make sense. Thanks 4 correcto:) no? So cute when he says that!