"It will take time to be the real Rafa again ..."

I have a log-on to The Times, so I've brought Rafa's interview with Mr Harmans over here. He isn't free from concern - even Neil mentions his nervousness - and he's starting to play again with an admission that the knee is not perfect. And before I get cross with Rafa or anything I ask myself this question ... will it ever be? And he'll be packing his bags and heading straight back to Mallorca if he can't compete as he wants to. He's staying positive to the challenge and he has to start somewhere.

Anyhow, enjoy the article ...

After six months out with a knee injury, the Spaniard is set to take a first step back to competitive action. But, he tells Neil Harman, it will have to be a cautious one ...

The Vall d’Or golf club in Porto Colom, Majorca, is decked in twinkling Christmas lights, its tree fully adorned, and Rafael Nadal takes a soft seat in a corner that is a touch cramped so that he has to keep moving around, feeling for and flexing the most talked-about left knee in tennis.

On the table are copies of his biography, newly published in Italian, ready for him to sign; the front cover shows Nadal naked to the waist and with a degree of haughtiness on his face.

Looking at that and looking at him now, the suspicion is that he has lost a little weight, and his manner is thoughtful and a touch apprehensive. The preparation for the formal announcement of his return has carried over from weeks to months, the bulletins on his Facebook page, once brimful of images of swimming, fishing and family, have been replaced by gym poses and his efforts on the practice court as Nadal has stepped it up. Now he is ready. Or is he?

He would love to tell you that he is free from concern, that the burdens have vanished, that he will be dashing about in the Abu Dhabi exhibition for three days next week like a frisky lamb, the like of which is depicted in the golf club’s nativity scene.

But he is guarded, and properly so. Of course, he wants to be back to the old Rafa right away, swirling his racket like a cutlass, threshing a swath through the opposition, as the ball spits and dips from his strings accompanied by the guttural “aaarrggerr” he emits as it finds its spot in the corner.

That will not be the case in the Emirates next week. He will be playing to win; not much point being out there otherwise, but he will be playing foremost in the hope that he feels no pain. That is more important. And if he does feel a jolt, he will stop, pack his bags, fly home to Majorca and the process will start again.

“I am not nervous,” he says, nervously. “The only thing is the knee, the rest of the things, I can play better, I can play worse, it doesn’t matter how I play tennis in the next month or a month and a half; for me, my goal is not Abu Dhabi, it is not Doha, it is not the Australian Open — my goal is try to be fit, to be 100 per cent recovered with my knee and 100 per cent fit in personal performance by Indian Wells and Miami [the two hard-court American Masters 1000 events in March], to try to arrive to Monte Carlo and all the clay-court season in good shape.

“I’m going to try to play in Abu Dhabi, knowing the knee is still not perfect. The doctors say that the images are very good, so that is a big calm for me, but I still feel something. I need to be careful. I need to be focused on how the knee is getting better or worse every day, and don’t make a mistake that can be negative for my future.

“Not yet do I have the feeling that I am 100 per cent ready to compete, to say, ‘I’m going to go there, I will be ready to run for every ball, to play aggressive, to do what I want with my legs and then try to play my best tennis to win.’

“Today it is not the case, so I really don’t like to be on a court and don’t feel I can compete and run as much as I can and I want, so if that happens I will be changing my mind and will be back in Majorca and will keep practising with my recovery and change to try to play on clay. I don’t want to start with big doubts on the knee.”

With those cautionary thoughts in mind, those preparing the red carpets in Doha in the first week of January and at the Australian Open thereafter had better hold their horses. Nadal has not expended so much energy, tried to be as patient as a hyperactive 26-year-old champion can possibly be, and presented as much optimism as he can in the circumstances to throw it all away again.

A hard-court stretch beckons at the start of the year and it has been on these hard courts that the joints and muscles take their worst pounding, accelerating the wear and tear of the patella tendon that caused him to miss the last six months of the 2012 season.

“I accepted the situation very well and that it is part of my career,” he says. “Nothing can be easy and it is another challenge for me to try to be back to my best after a while out of competition. Missing the Olympic Games was a real negative, a sad moment, and the other is that, with this injury, nobody can tell me that I have four months, six months, eight months; it is day by day.

“If you break your leg and they tell you have eight months out — the first two months this, the second two months that — then you will start something. It is very sad, but it is easy because you create your plan in your mind. This is about going into the gym every day, working very hard, and with a lot of days like you don’t feel you improve. That is very tiring mentally.

“The uncertainty is the worst part. I haven’t been afraid about retirement or all these kind of things. I don’t have zero doubt, but the only thing is, tennis is not forever. It is not like golf, when you have 20 or 25 years. Tennis is a limited time and you know the time I lost last year will not come back.

“That is the negative thing of our sport, but it is a challenge, and with all that I won in the last eight years, it gives me a lot of calm to wait for the right moment to come back. Another thing I think is that you never know if this period of time will help me to have a longer career because I had a break mentally.

“I am a positive guy and I think that I won’t forget how to play tennis in six, eight months. I don’t know when I will be back, but it will take time to come back to my best. I will work very hard to be back where I would love to be. I’m going to play tennis another time, it’s not something I have forgotten how to do.

“I played more than 600 matches on the tour and I haven’t been two years without playing a match. The last tournament I played with real conditions was the French Open and I won it, so the emotions for that final and how I won are still there.

“What will not be important for me is the first point in Abu Dhabi. It will be when I feel that my knee is ready. It is not the right time yet to feel these kinds of things. I will have these feelings hopefully at the end of February and the beginning of March — that is when I’m going to be 100 per cent fit and when I really start the season and feel ‘let’s start to win now’.”

You pause to let him reflect on the raw emotions at Roland Garros — where he won his seventh clay-court grand-slam tournament title and eleventh overall in May — and those at Wimbledon three weeks later when he persuaded himself that he was ready to play when he knew, deep down, that he was not. “Different things in my head make me feel very emotional [about winning the French Open],” he says. “Don’t forget I lost the Wimbledon final [of 2011], the US Open final, I lost the Australian final after almost six hours, and in Indian Wells and Miami.

“I felt I was playing great the whole [French] tournament, I felt the match was right, I was two sets to love and then the rain was there, the court starts to be more slow and [there are] heavy balls, so the top-spin was not creating pain on the game of [Novak] Djokovic and I spent a very bad night preparing for the next day. Not much sleep.

“I had the problem of the knee, with injections to put it to sleep before the semi-final and final, so a lot of facts, with a lot of people supporting me in this period of time, made me emotional.

“I was enjoying more than ever being back in the real competition, because in 2011, although I won a lot against almost everybody except Djokovic, my passion for the game was going down — that was my feeling. In 2012 I was enjoying it a lot more.

“The difficult thing was stopping. To say, ‘I’m not going to play Wimbledon because the knee is not good.’ When you are there it is very difficult. I am saying, ‘Please, doctor, do everything, but put me on court.’ They gave me more injections so I didn’t have the feeling, but I didn’t practise well for a week.

“I played the first match and the second with that, with no feeling. It is impossible to compete like this, but I tried. But if you are back in that position and you will do the same and lose in the second round, I will say, ‘No, I’m not that stupid, I’m not going to play.’ Before the tournament, I couldn’t predict that, but I tried.”

Might it be possible for Nadal to try to modify his style, to put less pressure on the areas of his body that have taken such exertion over the years? No one has played the game in his fashion and none may in the future.

“I would love to be that good to change, but I am good because I play this way,” he says. “If I play like [Roger] Federer, I’m not good, that’s the reality. Everybody plays with everything they have, so Federer understands the sport one way, Djokovic another way, Andy [Murray] another way, and I understand it my way.

“I didn’t start playing tennis a few months ago, I started at 3. My style has been always similar, that’s true, but my position on the court has improved, my serve has improved. But the general game you cannot change, the mind you cannot change. I think my way worked well. I don’t have a lot of options.

“My way is to play when I am ready to play my way. When I have played like this I’ve had the right results. I’ve been competing for everything and feeling I can beat everybody. So I am 26 years old, it is not the time to change a lot of things. It is time to recover well, to improve a few things that can help you, to run a little bit less. But the essence of the game will be the same.”

In Nadal’s absence the scenes shifted, as he knew they would. Murray won the Olympic gold he craved, Murray won the US Open that Nadal had won before. He watched the stories unfold with a sense that what he had always imagined would happen to the British No 1 had rightfully come to pass.

“You have asked me this question [about Murray winning a grand-slam] a lot of times,” Nadal says. “When you lost the confidence that Andy would win a grand-slam or would be a great champion, I always answered the same. When you are No 4 in the world, playing semi-finals and finals of grand-slams, all the same time playing Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, you will win a grand-slam soon. Because you got there time and again, if you feel great and the opponent doesn’t feel that great, you will win.”

But at two sets all, with Djokovic having won sets three and four, did you think Murray would prevail? Nadal pauses. I nudge him for an answer. “I was watching, yes, I will say I really thought Andy would win because the tennis owed him something. That was my feeling. The Olympics was a big change and with the calm of winning that at home, you go to a grand-slam final and you feel that Andy, before the match, believed he was the favourite. If you really believe in yourself, it doesn’t matter if you were leading by two sets to love and the opponent comes back. I really felt Andy would win, even though you know how much a great champion Djokovic is and how many matches he had saved in difficult circumstances.”

So he drives the five miles from the golf course to his home in Portocristo — his family lives in various homes around a picturesque bay where everyone can see everyone else — to pack for the trip to the Middle East. Spain, a country in the depths of financial despair, where there have been 21 successive quarters of rising unemployment, needs some good news, and Nadal may be about to provide a welcome respite from such overriding gloom.

“The situation in Spain is negative, so I cannot say being me is difficult,” he says. “What is difficult is the people who are suffering, trying to find work every week and to survive with very few things. That is difficult. Not being Rafa Nadal. It is a dream for me and I am lucky and I say thanks for the life and for what is happening to me.

“I really have done in all my life what I felt [inside]. I didn’t create an image. I don’t do things for what others will think of me. I do it my way. I try to do what for me is correct, what the close people to me and family taught me, and that is what I have done all my life. I feel very lucky to be who I am. I say thanks for the life, the sponsors who have confidence in me even more than ever in these kinds of moments.

“I have missed the feeling when you go inside the court, competing for something brings you something very special. This is not because you play a tennis match, but you are going to play in front of a lot of people who are cheering for you, who you know are behind you, supporting the sport, and that is something I missed. But I have to accept and await the right moment to be back.

“It will take time [to be the real Nadal again]. The people have to know when you are outside of the competition and haven’t played for a long time, you will have problems to come back to your best, but that is the beautiful thing of life — it gives you challenges, and this is another one. I think I have passed a few before with a very positive feeling and I hope that is going to happen again.”

Full set: Nadal’s grand-slam titles

2005 French Open Seeded No 4 in his first appearance at Roland Garros, the 19-year-old Spaniard beats Mariano Puerta in four sets

2006 French Open Roger Federer is the victim as Nadal wins in four once more to seal his second grand-slam title on clay, his favourite surface

2007 French Open Nadal beats Federer in four again, becoming the first man to win this title three times in a row since Björn Borg from 1978-81

2008 French Open Nadal equals Borg’s record of four titles in a row at Roland Garros with victory over Federer, losing just four games

2008 Wimbledon After 4hr 48min slugging it out on the Centre Court turf, Nadal beats Federer 9-7 in final set of “the greatest match in history”

2009 Australian Open Another five-setter against Federer ends in victory under the Melbourne lights, Nadal’s first hard-court grand-slam final

2010 French Open A fifth title on the Roland Garros clay is secured with relative ease, in three sets against Robin Söderling

2010 Wimbledon Nadal breaks a nation’s hearts by beating Andy Murray in the semi-finals before winning in three against Tomas Berdych

2010 US Open Nadal completes a career grand-slam with his first victory in New York as he beats Novak Djokovic in four

2011 French Open After three tight sets, Nadal wins the fourth 6-1 to see off Federer in a successful defence of his title

2012 French Open An eleventh grand-slam title — and record seventh at Roland Garros — is sealed with a win over Djokovic