classytennis:

1. Rafa thinks that all sportsmen and women go through some pain, except Federer.
   “I play through pain much of the time, but I think all elite sports people do. All except Federer, at any rate.’”
2. Rafa thinks Roger was born to play tennis.
   “I’ve had to push and mould my body to adapt it to cope with the repetitive muscular stress … but he [Federer] just seems to have been born to play the game.”
3. Maribel Nadal (his sister) calls Rafa a ‘scaredy cat.’
4. Rafa is scared of the dark. In fact, he sleeps with the lights on, or the television.
5. Rafa hates thunder and lighting.
   “When he was a child he’d hide under a cushion when that happened and, even now, when there’s a storm and you need to go outside, he won’t let you.”
6. He is also scared of the sea despite how he loves to jet-ski. His sister, Maribel, said he only jet-skis if he sees sand underneath.
7. Rafa hates tomatoes, cheese and ham. He loves Nutella, potato chips and olives.
8. Rafa panics at the thought that something bad might happen to his family.
   “Not only does he panic at the merest suggestion of ill health in the family, he is forever fretting that an accident may befall them.” 
9. Once, when he was a child, he hid inside a cupboard and devoured a huge jar of olives, that he vomited and was sick for days. But he still loves olives to this day.
10. Uncle Toni had been tough on him from the very start that he’d use rough language on Rafa. When Rafa had left his water bottle at home for a tennis match, Toni refused to buy him a bottle, insisting to give Rafa a lesson on responsibility at the smallest things.
11. When Rafa was a child, Rafa believed that Uncle Toni was a Tour de France champion and played football for Italy. Rafa trusted Uncle Toni with what he said so much that he believed Uncle Toni was a rainmaker.  Rafa’s father and grandfather played along with the joke, and pretended they couldn’t see Uncle Toni.
    “One day when I was seven, I was playing in a match against a boy of twelve. We didn’t rate our chances very highly, so Toni told me before the game that if I went down 0-5, he’d bring on the rain so the game would be called off. Well, he lost faith too soon. Because the rain started falling when I was down 0-3.”
    Rafa didn’t stop believing the tall stories of his uncle until he was nine.
12. Uncle Toni made Rafa sweet and pick up the tennis balls after he trained when he was young.
13. Rafa’s parents wants Rafa to be a ‘good person’ more than anything else.
    “My mother says she will love me even if I behaved like a spoiled brat, but she’d be too embarrassed to travel halfway around the world to watch me play.”
14. When Rafa played a football match and lost, Sebastian [his father] made Rafa say something like “Well done, champ. Very well played,” to the players of the other team. Rafa didn’t like it.
15. Rafa loves Real Madrid.
    ” … the football team of my life.”
16. Rafa’s then favourite food at 1996 was fried shrimp.
17. Losing to Roger at the 2007 Wimbledon final broke him. Rafa thought he did not give his best.
    “I never want to feel this way again.” 
18. Uncle Toni never aimed his tough training to hurt Rafa, but to “endure him.” Had Rafa been a weaker child, he would never attempt to do so. He was inspired by endurance when Jack Nicklaus [golfer] said, “First, hit the ball fair; then we’ll think about getting it in the hole.”
19. When Rafa once played in the Les Petits As and won, girls his age or older started going to him and asked for his signature. His parents were amused but slightly alarmed. Sebastian then got Maribel, then nine-years-old, made her join the queue and when she reached him, she she said in the most fawning, sickly sweet way, “Mr. Nadal, please can I have your autograph?”
    His parents laughed.
20. Rafa’s godmother once hung up a banner to congratulate him on winning, but Uncle Toni snatched it angrily, saying it will only make Rafa think that he is too good that he doesn’t need improvement.
21. Ana Maria [his mother] once signed Rafa up to a long-distance course to get him into university, but Rafa (accidentally) left all his books on a flight on the way to the Canary Islands.

Note: All of this are genuine, and I have gotten it from Rafa’s book, Rafa. The ones in Italic above are quotations from the book, although some of it are abridged. I will continue to do this until I have finished reading the whole book.