{"id":22544,"date":"2013-09-11T14:18:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T12:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/nadals-grandmother-shares-memories\/"},"modified":"2013-09-11T14:18:14","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T12:18:14","slug":"nadals-grandmother-shares-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/nadals-grandmother-shares-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Nadal\u2019s grandmother shares memories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=16338\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16338\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16338  \" alt=\"Rafael Nadal. Photo: Matthew Stockman \/ Getty Images\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/59d2e_176711488-600x450.jpg\" width=\"378\" height=\"284\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rafael Nadal. Photo: Matthew Stockman \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Rafael Nadal started playing with balls before he could walk and in his formative years liked soccer just as much as tennis, his grandmother Isabel Homar told Spanish radio today.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Cadena Ser from the island of Mallorca where Nadal is from, Homar said the world number two, who beat top-ranked Novak Djokovic to win his second US Open title on Monday, \u201calways liked anything that was round\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe started playing with balls in the hallway of his home before he learned to walk,\u201d Homar said, adding things often got broken by accident.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe loved playing football and he was always excited when Saturday came around,\u201d added the 82-year-old. \u201cHe liked football just as much as tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Homar remembered how her son Toni, who has coached his nephew to 13 grand slam titles, rang her one day and told her to come and watch her grandson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember one day Toni called me and said \u2018you have to come and see him\u2019,\u201d she said after watching <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/nadal-chasing-down-federers-record-after-us-open-win\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nadal\u2019s victory at Flushing Meadows<\/a> on television with members of her family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t remember how old he was, maybe six. He was already holding the racket very well and when he hit the ball he hit it well.\u201d \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more Rafael Nadal news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/rafael-nadal\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/88b1f_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rafael Nadal. Photo: Matthew Stockman \/ Getty Images Rafael Nadal started playing with balls before he could walk and in his formative years liked soccer just as much as tennis, his grandmother Isabel Homar told Spanish radio today. Speaking to Cadena Ser from the island of Mallorca where Nadal is from, Homar said the world [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-22544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}