Rafael “Rafa” Nadal Parera (Catalan: [rəfəˈɛɫ nəˈðaɫ pəˈɾeɾə], Spanish: [rafaˈel naˈðal paˈɾeɾa][citation needed]; born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish professional tennis player. He is widely regarded as the greatest clay-court player in history,[a] and owing to his dominance and success on the surface, he has been titled “The King of Clay”.[b] His evolution into an all-court threat has established him as one of the greatest players in tennis history,[c] with some considering Nadal to be the greatest player of all time.[26]
Nadal has won 14 Grand Slam singles titles, the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles, 28 titles in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events,[27][28][29] and 17 ATP World Tour 500 tournaments (a record tied with Roger Federer). He was also a member of the winning Spain Davis Cup team in 2004, 2008, 2009, and 2011. In 2010, he became the seventh player in history and youngest of four in the Open Era to achieve the Career Grand Slam at age 24. He is the second male player, after Andre Agassi, to complete the singles Career Golden Slam. In 2011, Nadal was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year.[30] The left-hander is the sixth player in the Open Era to reach more than 100 finals on the ATP World Tour.
Nadal and Mats Wilander are the only two male players in history who have won at least two Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces—hard court, grass, and clay.[31] By winning the 2014 French Open, Nadal became the third player to win a single Grand Slam tournament nine times (Martina Navratilova 9, Margaret Court 11) and the first to win at least one Grand Slam tournament for ten consecutive years, breaking the record of eight consecutive years previously shared by Björn Borg, Pete Sampras, and Roger Federer. Nadal holds the record after winning his eighth straight Monte-Carlo Masters in 2012 and is the only player in the open era to achieve such a feat. Nadal is the only male player in tennis history to win one Grand Slam and Masters 1000 title for ten consecutive years from 2005–2014. He equalled Guillermo Vilas’s all-time record of 49 clay court titles by winning the Barcelona Open in 2016
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