{"id":162598,"date":"2025-06-06T09:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/162598\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T09:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:35:10","slug":"rafael-nadal-now-explains-why-he-always-bit-the-trophy-after-winning-a-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/162598\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Nadal now explains why he always bit the trophy after winning a tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rafael Nadal won a lot of titles throughout his decorated career as a professional tennis player.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nadal won 14 titles at the French Open<\/a> alone, a record-breaking number that no other player in history can come near to.<\/p>\n

After retiring from tennis last year, Nadal received a farewell ceremony<\/a> in Paris that featured his former rivals Novak Djokovic<\/a>, Andy Murray<\/a> and Roger Federer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard often had to overcome those three players to win the biggest titles, and now Nadal<\/a> has explained why he would always bite the trophy after doing so.<\/p>\n

\"ThisPhoto by YANN COATSALIOU\/AFP via Getty ImagesRafael Nadal now explains why he always bit the trophy after winning a tournament<\/p>\n

Nadal is known as the \u2018King of Clay\u2019<\/a> for his dominance at the French Open<\/a>, as well as other tournaments on the surface that he often dominated.<\/p>\n

One of those tournaments was the Monte Carlo Masters<\/a>, where Nadal is a record 11-time champion.<\/p>\n

His first triumph at the Masters 1000 tournament came in 2005, when he beat Guillermo Coria in the final.<\/p>\n

When speaking in an interview with Roland Garros<\/a> about his iconic trophy bite, Nadal revealed that it actually originated at the Monte Carlo Masters that year, but he admitted he was unsure why he started it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won Monte Carlo this year in 2005, I don\u2019t know why I bit the trophy,\u201d confessed Nadal. \u201cAnd after that, the photographers started asking me to bite it again. So then it became a tradition and that\u2019s why, at the end, it was like this, always.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Nadal would bite many trophies in his career, winning 92 in total including 22 Grand Slams, 36 Masters 1000 titles and two Olympic<\/a> gold medals.<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal admits missing the French Open in 2003 and 2004 may have been beneficial<\/p>\n

Just a few weeks after biting the Monte Carlo Masters trophy, Nadal would go on to win his first Grand Slam at the French Open.<\/p>\n

Despite already being a top five ranked player heading into the tournament, it was actually Nadal\u2019s debut appearance at the French Open.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This was because Nadal was forced to miss the 2003 and 2004 tournaments due to an elbow and foot injury, respectively.<\/p>\n

Although this was a disappointment for him at the time, Nadal has now suggested that it was probably a blessing in hindsight.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first year here, I was supposed to be playing here in 2003 and 2004,\u201d said Nadal. \u201cBut unfortunately, in 2003 I broke my elbow, and in 2004 I broke my foot. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, two times that I was not able to be here before, but maybe for the good reason. Because then, when I came here for the first time, with this yeah different look, it was long time ago. I was able to win. But it was a good memory. Very, very young, full of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was just the start for Nadal, as he would dominate the French Open<\/a> and lose only four of his 116 matches in Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rafael Nadal won a lot of titles throughout his decorated career as a professional tennis player. Nadal won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[4294,4296,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-162598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-rafael-nadal","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114635743184868291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}