"Felix is Felix, but my nephew is my nephew, I wanted him to win" says Toni Nadal after Rafa's win

Toni Nadal recently spoke about the dilemma of having to face his nephew, Rafael Nadal, while coaching Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Toni Nadal spent much of his coaching career helping his nephew Nadal become one of the best players in history. The Nadal family is a sporting family with a couple of members playing sports.

Rafael is not the first professional athlete from the family either, but he’s by far the most successful athlete in the family. A huge role in that was played by his uncle Toni, who served as a coach and mentor for most of his career.

While they don’t work as closely as they used to these days, the uncle always keeps a close eye on the career of his nephew. These days Toni Nadal is actually coaching Felix Auger-Aliassime, who asked him to help him ahead of this year’s clay season.

It’s been a bit of an up-and-down season for Auger-Aliassime, who remains one of the more talented players on the ATP Tour but also a player who fails to materialize that talent in a meaningful way.

Nadal is there to help him achieve that, much like he helped Rafael. The most recent match Auger-Aliassime played was against Nadal, and Uncle Toni was honest about his feelings after the match:

That’s a fair comment and makes sense because the match was played at Roland Garros. It was an important match, much like it is an important event for Nadal. The legend himself admitted before the match that he didn’t think his uncle would cheer against him.

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