The incident received a lot of media attention, especially in the context of Rafael Nadal preparing to return to the tennis industry.
18-year-old Spanish tennis player Ariana Geerlings has caused a stir with recent statements criticizing the standards and operations of the Rafa Nadal Tennis Academy.
According to Geerlings, this organization applies training methods similar to the 22-time Grand Slam champion, which she believes is not suitable for young students.
This female tennis player continued to say that because not everyone has a physique like Nadal, this training intensity makes it difficult for many people to adapt.
Geerlings said in a recent interview with Punto de Break:
“They practice for many hours and Toni (Nadal) is always present. He trained me a lot. They have the same philosophy as Rafa, train a lot and rest little, completely focused on the race.”
That poses a high risk of injury, because not everyone has a physique like Nadal. Many of us cannot keep up with the pace of training 5 hours a day and no rest days.”
Despite this, she still has a certain amount of respect for the Students for putting in their best efforts to ensure that they can devote themselves to this sport.
“Anyway, it was still a great experience, they supported me from day one. Maybe I left when I was very young, you have to leave your parents and that’s difficult, although it’s also been good for me as an adult and realizing the sacrifices that this career requires.”
She understands that the Academy is trying to serve a large number of students from all over the world. But she feels more needs to be done to ensure training is personalized.
“From what I know and have observed, everyone works out the same number of hours. Apparently, if you’re too tired, they’ll let you rest one day.
I think what they need is to better identify each player, analyze and understand them more, decide what is best for each profile. But I understand that this is the Academy, and there are so many people, you cannot determine a plan for each person.”
