Rafa's family has never been abusive. His parents have always given him an opportunity to choose his path. His parents would have hired him another tennis coach instead of his uncle, if Rafa had wanted.
Rafa was a promising footballer as a kid, but he had to choose between football and tennis at the age of 12. His father asked him to make a choice between football and tennis, and Rafa chose tennis. His father said he could have been a fine professional footballer.
Rafa's father, a businessman, has worked hard to provide a comfortable life for his family and to be able to cover expenses related to coaching his son.
Rafa says in his autobiography ("Rafa: My Story", 2011): ¤¤ Toni has never received any money [a salary] from me or from anyone in the family for the lifelong attention he's dedicated to me, but he's been able to do it because he owns half of my father's business, and takes half the profits, without doing any of the work. It's been a fair exchange because I would never have had anything like the same hours of coaching from Toni if my father had not worked with such purpose all his life....
...My father, two years older than Toni, has started one business after another from scratch; he is single-minded about his objectives, but he has made his family his first responsibility...He has employed dozens of people in his various businesses and created the conditions for us to live well and for Toni to dedicate himself to me.¤¤
