Everyone knows the Toni-Rafa story. He trained Rafa as a child, instilled discipline and work ethic. But did he really make Rafa a legend with 22 Slams? Rafa is super talented - one of the best 3 to ever play the game. Would he not have succeeded with or without Toni?
Toni's management of Rafa in his down years of 2014-2015 was poor. Rafa was overworked under him but under Moya he did targeted practice, improved various aspects of his game and delivered more bangs for bucks. Toni also tried to train Felix Auger Aliassime with hardly any success. If he was a such a great coach, would he not have got more out of Felix? Felix is an ideal student unlike Kyrgios. So, he can't complain about his attitude. When he took on Felix, jury was still out.
After all these years of coaching Felix, what do you think now?
Rafa is a product of his family, including his extended family.
Rafa says in his autobiography (“Rafa: My Story”, 2011): ¤¤ So there was fun and magic in my relationship with Toni, even if the prevailing mood when we trained was stony and severe. And we had plenty of success. If he hadn't made me play without water that day, if he hadn't singled me out for especially harsh treatment when I was in that group of little kids learning the game, if I hadn't cried as I did at the injustice and abuse he heaped on me, maybe
I would not be the player I am today. He always stressed the importance of
endurance". …
But my values as a person and my way of being, which ultimately is what
underlines my game, come from my father and mother. It's true that Toni has insisted I have to behave well on court, set an example, never throw a racket to the floor in anger, something I have never, ever
done.
But - and this is the point -
if I had been brought up differently at home,
I might not have paid him any attention.
My parents always
imposed a lot of discipline on me. … Both my parents and, for that matter, my uncle Toni have always said that, never mind the tennis, their biggest desire was that I should grow up to be "good people." My mother says that if I were not, if I behaved like a spoiled brat, she would still love me, but she'd be too embarrassed to travel halfway around the world to watch me play. They drummed into me the importance of treating everybody with respect from an early age. Whenever our team lost a football match, my father insisted that I had to go up to the players of the rival team afterward and congratulate them. …
For all the discipline, I had an amazingly happy and warm family life as a child…
Every member of my family has contributed to who I am now. In the case of my uncle Miguel Ángel [a pro footballer], I was lucky to get a taste of the kind of life that would await me after I made the grade as a tennis player. He was a big star, especially in Mallorca. He gave me a glimpse of the life I was to live: he made money and he became famous; he appeared in the media, and he was mobbed and cheered wherever he went. But he always remained a modest and straightforward person. That for me he always remained just my uncle meant that I also learned from a young age to put all that celebrity stuff in perspective and, when the time came, to keep my feet on the ground. ¤¤
