Rafael Nadal believes struggles part of career

World number one Rafael Nadal said that it is normal for a tennis player, even those in the upper echelons of the sport, to have struggles since it is part of their careers.

Nadal gave this perspective following yet another three-set match victory at this week’s Rome Masters. Nadal rallied past Mikhail Youzhny of Russia 6-7, 6-2, 6-1 on Friday to earn a quarterfinal berth. He’s slated to meet Andy Murray on Saturday.

“Get used to [it],” he said, when asked about his early round struggles. “Because with the years it is the normal thing and in the end everybody suffers. It’s part of the sport. It’s part of the careers of everybody.”

Nadal also had an exhausting opening round match against Gilles Simon which lasted more than three hours and took three sets as well.

“I am almost 28. At this age, [Bjorn] Borg was doing other things,” Nadal said. “It’s not possible to win for 10 years a lot of matches with easy results, easy scores. At the same time, I am sure that I can do it much better than I am doing. I need to do it. When somebody wants to do it, when somebody is fighting to do it, a lot of times you find the solutions. I am fighting in every match.”

Nadal has had a couple of surprise early round losses at the Monte Carlo Masters and Barcelona Open where he was ousted in quarterfinals of both tournaments by David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro respectively.

“You always have to find the positive thing because you play the next day and it’s important to look around and say I was able to play with the right passion,” he said. “I was able to play with the right motivation to win the mach even if the feelings were not perfect. So that’s always very good news.”