stylistic:tone, structural:summarization
Involvement in football and other sports

Nadal is an avid football fan and his favorite clubs are RCD Mallorca and Real Madrid CF, stating "when my uncle (Miguel Ángel) was playing for Barcelona, we wanted Barcelona to win. Before that, my whole family was for Real Madrid. After my uncle left the Barcelona team, then we’re all for the Real Madrid again. I have got nothing against Barcelona, but I prefer Real Madrid to win". According to his uncle Toni, Nadal is "a mad fan of Real Madrid", and regards French football player Zinedine Zidane as an athlete who is "as high as any man can get". In 2005, Nadal received the Coupe des Mousquetaires from the hands of Zidane, who called him "a phenomenon".

In December 2007, in the "Friends of Iker v Friends of Rafa" charity sports event, the two teams contested a tennis match and a football match, in which Nadal showed his football skills by scoring six goals against Casillas. With the teams tied at 14–14, the combined scores from the football and tennis matches, the event had to be decided in a penalty shoot-out, which was won by Nadal's squad. In December 2008, Nadal and Casillas staged a similar event, this time including an indoor football match, a tennis match, and a go-kart race. Casillas’ team won the kart race, mainly thanks to the experienced driving abilities of Spanish former Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso, while Nadal’s squad, which included Barcelona football star Samuel Eto'o and Novak Djokovic, then hit back to win the tennis event. The deciding football match ended in defeat for Nadal by a score of 9–12 loss.

On 8 July 2010, it was reported that he had become a shareholder of RCD Mallorca, his local club by birth, in an attempt to assist the club from debt. Nadal reportedly owns 10 percent and was offered the role of vice president, which he rejected. His uncle Miguel Ángel Nadal became assistant coach under Michael Laudrup. Shortly after acquiring his interest in Mallorca, Nadal called out UEFA for apparent hypocrisy in ejecting the club from the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League for excessive debts, saying through a club spokesperson, "Well, if those are the criteria upon which UEFA is operating, then European competition will only comprise two or three clubs because all the rest are in debt, too."

He is a fervent supporter of the Spanish national team, and he was one of six people not affiliated with the team or the national federation allowed to enter the team's locker room following Spain's victory in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final.

Nadal has made several honorary kick-offs, such as in the Parc des Princes between PSG and Stade de Reims for a Ligue 1 match in 2012, swapping his racket for the shirt of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and in Rio's local football derby between CR Vasco da Gama and CR Flamengo at the Maracanã Stadium in 2014. In 2022, Nadal was invited to take the symbolic kick-off between Real Madrid and RCD Espanyol for a La Liga match at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and was greeted by a heartfelt standing ovation from Real Madrid supporters and from Carlos Alcaraz, who was also present in the stands. In 2023, Nadal kicked-off a Copa del Rey match between his hometown club CE Manacor and UD Las Palmas. Manacor's vice-president, Joan Gonzalez, then presented Nadal with a Manacor team’s red and white-striped T-shirt for his baby son, who had just turned a year old.

In addition to tennis and football, Nadal enjoys playing golf and poker. In April 2014, he played the world's No. 1 female poker player, Vanessa Selbst, in a poker game in Monaco. In October 2020, Nadal competed in the professional-level Balearic Golf Championship, obtaining a World Amateur Golf Ranking in the process. Nadal plays golf even more determinedly than tennis, stating "I am decidedly unfriendly during a golf game, from the first hole to the last".