The bronze lad has everything: Great looks, a good attitude and 10 Grand Slams. And now young Rafael Nadal has an autobiography entitled, simply, “Rafa.” You might dismiss the notion of a 20-something kid coming out with a bio. The book —written with John Carlin, (who penned the celebrated volume “Invictus,” on Nelson Mandela) — is hardly a riveting tell-all thriller like Andre Agassi”s “Open.” But amazingly, it”s already soared to No. 9 on the bestseller list. In its pages, we learn much of the normal kid from a small Mediterranean island who became a worldwide icon. For starters, Rafa had a tumultuous relationship with his coach Uncle Toni Nadal. He wouldn”t have reached the top without Toni, who was a gotta-be-cruel-to-be-kind guide who rode him heavy. When Toni — so focused and intense- is around, there”s always a certain tension. Plus, Nadal denied the oft-repeated tale that Toni made him a southpaw. Rafa made the move himself when Toni insisted he shouldn”t play with two-hands off of both wings.
Nadal”s bio is an ode to family, dedication and humility. Nadal is hardly out of the Mac, Connors, Agassi, Roddick school of vain stars. Armed with a zealous respect of opponents, the boy with an aversion to self-promotion knows his place in a “world which will continue exactly as it is without you…[and that] “the higher you are, the greater your duty to deal [with people] with respect.”
Clearly Nadal loves Mallorca and Monte Carlo, golf and Tiger Woods (who, due to his “clearheadedness, determination and attitude” is the closest he has to an idol).
We”re told that Roger Federer was “born to play the game,” is “suave and effortlessly superior…[an] aristocrat who strolls on court waving airily to the multitudes as if he owned Wimbledon, as if he were welcoming guests to a private garden party…Federer belonged to a type one might have seen in the 1920s, when tennis was an upper-crust pastime, a gentlemen”s spirited exercise following afternoon tea.”
Nadal readily concedes that Federer has better strokes then he does, and is the best of all time. So he has to be patient and calm and know that when Roger”s in the zone, his “utter brilliance” will eventually pass. “He is human, too,” says Rafa who reveals he “has to beat him mentally…to never let up, to try and wear him down from the first point to the last.”
Nadal seems to view Novak Djokovic as an even tougher foe, “a very complete player.” Against the Serb, there is “no clear tactical plan…The moment you let him get the upper hand he is unstoppable.”
Physically, we learn that “a tennis player must take his example from the hummingbird, the only animal that combines endless stamina with high speed, [that is] able to manage up to eight wing flaps per second over four hours.” Beyond this, Nadal views tennis as an ever-changing “sport of the mind” that is “all about resolving emergencies…What I battle hardest to do in a match is to quiet the voices in my head to shut everything out of my mind…and concentrate every atom of my being.”
It doesn”t always work. Rafa candidly tells us of his tears as a kid under pressure, at the Aussie Open, at Wimbledon and in 2009, when a rare foot disease sank him into a deep, prolonged depression and brought him “close to tennis death…I stared the end of my career in the face, and the experience, awful as it had been, had made me stronger mentally, given me the wisdom to see that life — any life — is a race against time.”
More than anything, Nadal is a blend of forces, a product of a swirl of contradictions. It”s not so much that he is Spanish claymiester who absolutely adores grassy Wimbledon; or that he has a warm “n fuzzy relationship with his arch rival, Mr. Roger, or that, according to his pal Carlos Moya, “the secret of the tremendous appeal Rafa has worldwide…is that he is as passionate as McEnroe was, but he has the self-control of Borg, the cold-blooded killer. To be both in one is a contraction and that”s what Rafa is.”
From the get-go Rafa was intense, focused, and was imbued with a prepare-hard/must-win mindset, “a Spartan philosophy of life uncommon on an island, and in a country, where the pleasure principle reigned.” Okay, he would stay up clubbing to dawn with the best of them, but four hours later he”d go out on court having transformed himself from a “hedonist son the Mediterranean…[to a] a disciplined model of self-denial.”
On court, snarling and bull-like, he appears the fierce gladiator. Yet “he is more cautious than you might think.” There are many conservative elements in his topspin, often patient, wait for your opening game. Yes, he”s astoundingly brave on-court, but off-court his mother, Ana Maria Parera, says he”s a bit of a scaredy cat who has quirky eating habits (no cheese, no tomatoes,) is not comfortable with thunder and lightning, won”t swim unless he can see the bottom of the sea or sleep at night without a light or TV on. His mom tells us that “he”s on top in tennis, but deep down, he is a super-sensitive human being full of fears and insecurities that people who don”t know him would scarcely imagine.” On court, he”s organized and neat to a fault. At home his room is a mess and when he travels he forgets things. “When it comes to sports I am a disciplined and an orderly person, but in everything else I am distracted and chaotic.”
Forty-five minutes before every match he takes a freezing, cold shower and “enters a new space in which I feel my power and resilience grow. I”m a different man when I emerge. I”m activated. I”m in “the flow”…[I feel] a state of altered concentration in which the body moves by pure instinct, like a fish in a current. Nothing else exists but the battle ahead…during a match you are in a permanent battle to fight back your everyday vulnerabilities, bottle up your human feeling. The more bottled up they are the greater your chances of winning. For me, against Federer, if I silenced the doubts and fears, and exaggerated hopes, inside my head better than he did, I could beat him.”
In a sport of incredible families, Nadal”s (“it takes a village”) clan was a wonder: A musician grandfather, the patriarchal father who was the “definer of the values [and the] keeper of the rules,” the uncle who was the inspired coach and a mother who was the glue. “My parents were the pillar of my life,” writes Rafa. “My family had always been the holy, untouchable core of my life, my center of stability and a living album of my wonderful childhood memories…Suddenly and utterly without warning, the happy family portrait had cracked [when his dad moved out and his parents divorced in “09]…Paradise had become Paradise Lost” and Rafa “became a different person, distant and cold, short and sharp in conversation.” Plus, he lost at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open before he eventually adapted and began a wonder year, 2010, when he dominated Federer, won three Slams, gave a Spanish accent to the free-form debate on who is the best player of all time, and began work on an intriguing autobiography which, en route to the top 10 bestseller list, reveals much.
