I have the highest motivation to try to start well – Rafael Nadal on the new season

Rafael Nadal is motivated to start the new season on a positive note. The veteran will lead Spain in the upcoming United Cup in Sydney. The tournament is an 18-country mixed-teams event, which will be held in Brisbane, Perth, and Sydney from 29 December-8 to January.

Nadal feels it’s imperative to hit the ground running in the new season and he is looking forward to making a good start. The veteran had made a positive start in the 2022 season, winning the Melbourne Summer Set and the Australian Open and also making the final of the Indian Wells.

Thus, the 22-time Grand Slam champion had a 20-0 start in the previous season and he would look to make a similar start in the upcoming season.

“Always the beginning of the season is exciting,” Nadal said in Spain’s pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday. “For everybody [it] is a new thing, all the doubts, how things [are] going to go. Even if I don’t know how many seasons I have on the Tour, beginnings are always different.

“[I have the] highest motivation to try to start well. It’s always important to start well for me, for confidence. [The] past few months haven’t been easy for me. I just try to have the right practice here before the tournament starts. Then of course, try to help the team. [The] main thing for me now is [to] recover the positive feelings on the court, being competitive. I hope to. I am ready to make that happen, but let’s see.”

Nadal won four tour-level titles in the previous season and had a 39-8 record. The Spaniard will face Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie and Australian Alex de Minaur in Group D. He added he wants to put himself in a competitive situation in order to get going.

“Only thing that I am focused now is try to put myself in a competitive level,” Nadal said. “[The] first match [is] going to be against Cam Norrie, so that’s the focus now. Then for me I think is to try to win the first tie as a team more than any individual match. Then let’s see what can happen against Australia.”

Nadal will have the company of Spanish players like Paula Badosa, Pablo Carreno Busta, Nuria Parrizas Diaz, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, David Vega Hernandez and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the United Cup.