Sports
Rafael Nadal Remodeled Team For The Final Stage of His Career.
Rafael Nadal Remodeled Team For The Final Stage of His Career.
The departure of one of his coaches, Francis Roig, leaves the Manacorí with a changed and remodeled team for the final stage of his career.
There are times when a break in time can be a victory for both parties involved. Rafa Nadal knows what painful changes are, although sometimes more than necessary. The two coaches with whom he won his first Grand Slam, back in 2005, will no longer accompany him next season.
Francis Roig, the historic coach in Rafa’s triumphs, has decided to embark on a new professional project on the ATP circuit, stopping training the man from Manacor for the first time in 18 years. It hasn’t been an ugly break or anything like that, but Rafa needed a new impulse for this final part of his career.
“I have made this decision after thinking about it a lot and I understand that the time has come to start a new project that includes more than one player and that allows me to form my working group for the coming years,” said Roig about his departure from a team Nadal that is now made up of Carlos Moyá and Marc López.
The departure of Toni Nadal
The departure of Francis Roig joins that of Toni Nadal at the end of 2017. At that time, Rafa’s uncle decided to dedicate himself to the academy and also to advise players. Top-level tennis players such as Félix Auger-Aliassime or Casper Ruud have emerged from his factory, which is a 100% product of the Nadal school.
Toni is the mirror in which Roig will look at himself after dedicating a lifetime to improving the game of Rafa Nadal who has reached impressive heights. Now, the best tennis player in the history of Spain faces a new stage with coaches completely different from the original ones.
The differences between each other
While Roig and uncle Toni had an impact on long points and the psychological exhaustion of the rival, the duo formed by Moyá and López seek to extend Rafa’s career through shorter, explosive, and dynamic points. Since Moyá entered at the end of 2016, Nadal’s serve has experienced a significant improvement to the point of turning it into a strength when before it was a weakness.
Rafael Nadal Remodeled Team For The Final Stage of His Career.
The transition from Toni’s departure as Rafa’s coach to make way for Moyá lasted exactly one season and the sequence has been repeated with Roig leaving his place to Marc López. The latter was a fundamental piece in Nadal’s career when he experienced one of his lowest points at the 2016 Brazil Olympics, winning a gold medal in doubles together.
De López highly values Rafa’s ability to see tennis as easy and also his quality when it comes to improving the game on the net. As a good doubles player, this coach has pushed his pupil to improve in this facet as Federer did in his day to winning Grand Slams close to 40 years of age.
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These changes are not the result of any improvisation, but of an evolution of Rafa Nadal as a tennis player. Few things remain of the boy who did not give up a ball for loss and who was a real fronton for his rivals. The winner of 22 Grand Slams has been expanding his repertoire until physicality is not the key to his game.
Now he has a more than important serve and some hard groundstrokes that give him a power capable of counteracting the best on the circuit. Nadal, at 36, wants to continue winning and knows that the road ahead is not easy. He is sure that with the help of Moyá and López he can continue to enlarge his legend.
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Sports
It shouldn’t have come from his mouth: Christopher Bell disgrace Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson in public
Christopher Bell disgrace Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson in public
Christopher Bell made his choice about NASCAR’s top superstars based on their achievements in races. He believes that drivers like Austin Dillon from RCR, Kyle Busch from JGR, Brad Keselowski from Team Penske, and Bubba Wallace from RFK Racing are the top drivers in terms of wins.
Bell did not mention big names like Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, who may be famous but do not have the same level of success as the veterans. He also noted that in the Next-Gen era, there is greater equality in the field, with 15-20 cars competing for the win each week.
This means that the dominance seen in the Big-3 era may not return. Bell suggests that NASCAR needs to find unique ways, like the Netflix documentary, to improve the sport.
Three weeks have passed since the Texas race, and the stunning comeback story it harbored is still the talk of the town. After getting sidelined for 42 Cup races, Chase Elliott stormed back into the winning scene of NASCAR. And the journey to the podium has been a prickly one, laden with obstacles every step of the way.
Chase Elliott suffered a knee injury in a snowboarding accident in 2023 and saw his playoff chances spiraling away from him. His troubles saw no end in sight as his long-time spotter, Eddie D’Hondt, packed up his bags and left. However, the memory of his previous fire helped his journey of recovery.
2023 marked the first season that Chase Elliott walked out of a NASCAR Cup schedule without a single win. However, he did not let his drooping spirits get the better of him. Elliott worked hard with his No. 9 team for a slow but sure comeback in 2024. They crept up the ladder after Daytona, never letting the winless hangover overcome them.
Elliott secured 5th place at Richmond and then grabbed a podium finish at Martinsville. The six-time defending Most Popular Driver held his fans at the edge of their seats. Sure enough, Chase Elliott found his long-lost glory in the Lone Star state. On a recent ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour’ episode, Harvick asked Elliott about the relief he felt on seizing that coveted win. Elliott responded, “Yeah, the first time…I’m not quite used to seeing the other side of the interviews…it is odd, I’m getting used to it. Yeah definitely, relief involved, for sure.”
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We are where we belong: Lewis Hamilton ruthless after Mercedes bankruptcy
Mercedes experienced another blow in the neck at the start of the Formula 1 weekend in Miami. George and Hamilton failed in sprint qualifying in Q2. After the slap, Hamilton didn’t even look for excuses, but instead came to a ruthless conclusion.
“I have the feeling that we got everything out of our car. That’s just our pace. We have to accept that we are seven tenths of a second behind,” said the record world champion.
Mercedes in the Miami midfield: balance is right, result is not
Over the past few weekends, setup experiments have often been cited as an explanation for poor results. There was no talk of this in Miami, although the upgrades that Mercedes brought to the track on a large scale and the sprint format would have given plenty of reason to blame a setup search.
But according to Hamilton, there was no problem with the car’s balance. “The car felt very good in training and it didn’t feel bad in sprint qualifying either,” he summarized. Hopes for the race are muted. “The sprint race will be tough. I don’t expect much from 12th place. Plus, it’s not easy to overtake and follow other cars on this track,” said Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton pessimistic: Are points even possible?
“We’ll just try to get into the points somehow, if we can,” are his small goals. George Russell’s outlook for the short race on Saturday sounded a little more optimistic. “I have no doubt that we will continue to sprint forward.” He starts in P11, just one position ahead of his teammate and compatriot.
However, he sees a need for action with a view to qualifying for the sixth Grand Prix of the 2024 Formula 1 season. “We have to get our qualifying problems under control. Because it is always difficult to fight with other cars when you start from behind “, he said.
Russell’s balance conclusion was similar to Hamilton’s: “In the soft tire felt good on our car, but on the medium tire in qualifying we couldn’t get our car into the sweet spot.”
Mercedes dead end: After the first training session things go downhill
What is particularly alarming for Mercedes is a well-known phenomenon this season: after a good start to the weekend in the first training session, there is no improvement in the following sessions. Mercedes engineer Andrew Shovlin also noted this: “Unfortunately, in the crucial session, we were unable to take the step that others were able to, as we have seen many times this year.”
The Silver Arrows still find a little consolation in the time table: the gaps were quite small in the first qualifying session of the weekend. P5 was only two tenths of a second away. Whether a comparison with RB driver Daniel Ricciardo and a gap of seven tenths to the top meets the demands of a team that once dominated is another matter.
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Millions of Dollars: Dale Earnhardt Jr. faces financial challenges and raises concerns with all the blame on NASCAR
Dale Earnhardt Jr. faces financial challenges and raises concerns with all the blame on NASCAR
Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals lack of profitability in NASCAR teams. The NASCAR Hall of Famer has always been vocal about the financial challenges and concerns that arise from owning a racing team in NASCAR. This is due to the current state of NASCAR and the reason why none of the teams are able to generate profits.
During an episode of his podcast, Dale Jr. Download, the 49-year-old driver shared his thoughts on the agreement between NASCAR and the teams. He discussed how he never made money as a team owner, including his Xfinity team, JR Motorsports, and how none of the teams can turn a profit under the current agreement.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. expressed frustration with the overall situation and showed empathy towards the teams, understanding the significant amount of money invested behind the scenes. The financial situation of NASCAR teams seems to be quite complex after the new grant agreement, and NASCAR will likely need to address this issue to avoid future complications.
During the same conversation, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is also a team owner at JRM, shared an interesting detail about Denny Hamlin’s perspective on the profitability of NASCAR teams. According to Earnhardt Jr., co-owner of 23XI Racing, Hamlin supports the teams and is actively working to make them profitable.
Earnhardt Jr. revealed that he has had several discussions with Hamlin about the importance of profitability and how they have been collaborating behind the scenes to help teams achieve financial success. Only time will tell if these efforts will lead to improvements in the financial situation of NASCAR teams.
It shouldn’t have come from his mouth: Christopher Bell disgrace Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson in public
We are where we belong: Lewis Hamilton ruthless after Mercedes bankruptcy
