Nick Kyrgios reveals what Rafael Nadal used to do in the locker room to try and intimidate him before matches

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Rafael Nadal was dominant on the ATP Tour, picking up 22 Grand Slam titles, holding the number one ranking for 209 weeks.

When Nadal broke through to win the French Open title on his debut in 2005, fans knew they were witnessing something special.

Over the next 17 years, the Spaniard continued to dominate at Roland Garros, picking up 14 titles in total.

That’s not to say he wasn’t impressive elsewhere, as Nadal won the Australian Open twice, Wimbledon twice, and the US Open on four occasions.

Winning as much as he did, Nadal’s rivals were often intimidated by the man they call ‘The King of Clay’.

One player who contested nine ATP Tour matches with Nadal has now revealed what the 22-time Grand Slam champion did before their matches to try and intimidate him.

Nick Kyrgios says Rafael Nadal used to swing his racket ‘really hard’ in the locker room to ‘intimidate him’

During the latest episode of ‘Wimbledon Unfiltered with Nick Kyrgios’, Kyrgios was asked which player got under his skin the most in the locker room.

“Probably Rafa [Nadal] to be honest,” he said.

“Rafa was a nightmare before you played him because he would get his racket and he would swing really hard in front of you and try to intimidate you.

“It did work, because you’re sitting there, maybe listening to music, and you just hear this guy’s racket zooming, he’s jumping around. He made you feel a bit nervous.”

Kyrgios remembered filming Nadal before their quarterfinal clash at the Cincinnati Open, a match he won in straight sets.

“I videoed it one time, I think I’ve got it on my social media, I was videoing him warming up in the background at Cincinnati,” he said.

“Then I destroyed him, so it was fine.

“But he had a lot of theatrics inside the locker room. Rafa was the king of it.”

Nadal got the better of Kyrgios on several occasions, winning their head-to-head 6-3.

Their rivalry was hotly contested, as Kyrgios admitted he ‘hated’ Nadal during a podcast appearance last year.

“I couldn’t stand him. I used to hate and despise him so much when I saw him walking around. He was one guy who always motivated me,” said Kyrgios.

“If I played him, I would get up for it and try and get the best tennis I could possibly play.”

Winning three matches against Nadal, Kyrgios had a few tricks up his sleeve whenever he played the Spaniard.

Nick Kyrgios admits he purposefully knocked Rafael Nadal’s water bottles over

A maverick on and off the court, Kyrgios was never afraid to do things his own way, as he now explains why he didn’t have the same respect for Nadal and Roger Federer as some of his fellow ATP stars.

“I think with me it was that I didn’t respect them as much as the other tennis players, because I did not watch tennis when I was growing up. I never went to any of the Grand Slams. Tennis was not in my family at all; my parents were not good at tennis. My siblings tried to play, and they were pretty average,” he said.

“So when I saw Nadal and Federer and these Gods for the first time, most of these tennis players live and breathe tennis, but with me, I kind of was just good at it and I just trained and ended up there.”

“So, I just saw them as other guys.”

Kyrgios revealed what he did to Nadal’s water bottles when they played, disrupting the Spaniard’s iconic routine.

“When I saw his bottles and they had to be in the exact same position, I was like, who does this guy think he is?” said Kyrgios.

“I knocked the bottles over.

“I didn’t see them as the Gods. They were just humans to me. They have achieved incredible things, they are the greatest of all time, but for me, they were just dudes.”

Securing wins over Nadal, Federer, and Novak Djokovic during his career, Kyrgios certainly proved the ‘big three’ were human.