Francis Roig leaves Rafa Nadal's coaching staff

MADRID, 16 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Barcelona's Francis Roig, tennis player Rafa Nadal's coach since the beginning of his career, leaves the coaching staff of the Balearic Islands after 18 years with him, confirmed this Friday the number two in the world, who wanted to thank him for his "years of work and friendship."

"I wanted to inform you that Francis Roig is leaving the team. Francis has been an important person in my career and I am very grateful to him for all these years of work and friendship. When we started working together I was a child and together with my uncle Toni, we started on the circuit", recalled Nadal in a statement also published on his social networks.

"Francis is a great coach who knows tennis very well and has helped me a lot to get better. I only have words of gratitude and I wish him all the luck in the world in his new project," he continued.

Roig, who retired as a tennis player in 2001, joined the Manacor team in 2005 with Toni Nadal, and also worked with Carlos Moyá and Marc López on the coaching staff of the 22-time Grand Slam winner. In addition, he was sub-captain of the Spanish Davis Cup team with Albert Costa and Davis Cup winner in 2009 and 2011.

"For me it has been a real pleasure and honor to work with Rafa and the rest of the team. We never thought we could get so many results and have such a long career with him, but Rafa is a phenomenon and he makes everything look easy," he explained. Roig.

"I have made this decision after thinking about it a lot and I understand that the time has come to start a new project that includes more than one player and that allows me to form my working group for the coming years. I only have words of gratitude to Rafa and to my teammates for all these years together, learning, working and making Rafa what he is, a sports legend. Friendship remains and we will see each other and enjoy ourselves, as we have always done, on the circuit", he concluded.