Bill Simons
Rafa Nadal is 38. He’s won 22 Slams and 14 French titles. And all of tennis has long known that the day was coming soon when the King of clay would be calling it a day.
Today is that day. He announced, that after 21-glorious and rather muscular seasons, he’ll be retiring after next month’s Davis Cup play in Spain.
With his announcement today, we were quick to recall when he emerged as a teenage phenom in 2004 playing Davis Cup in a packed soccer stadium in Seville before 27,OOO elated fans. And we remembered a special day at Roland Garros in 2022 when word got out that Rafa would be playing on Court Suzanne Lenglen.
This would be like getting to hear Paul McCartney singing at your local cafe.
Court Lenglen is a celebration of intimacy and it has the best press seats in the world – just 20 yards from the gorgeous clay court that is nothing less than a silken tapestry.
Watching any master up close is a privilege. You feel you have to relish every moment, catch every nuance and embed it in your memory. And below me, from the third row of the press box, is an ode to athletic power. In Rafa we see a hint of Draymond Green’s intensity. Here’s a linebacker in sneakers. His focus doesn’t waver. He explodes into his shots. His muscularity is fluid.
Of course, we chuckle as we note his rituals: kicking the clay off his Nikes, tugging his shirt, tapping his face, pulling his wedgies. Up close, Rafa’s bald spot seems bigger, his fistpumps to his box seem fiercer. Between points his strides have a no-nonsense military intent. His ferocity shouts loud. He glares at a fan in a red Emirates hat who arrives late. His penetrating stare seems to say: “How dare you disturb my stage!” Shot after shot, his almost primordial grunt fills the French air – “Oohh-ahhh!” or is it “Ehh-ahh!”?
But it’s his athleticism that mesmerizes us. It’s said that the hardest thing to do in tennis is beat Nadal on clay in five sets. The only winning strategy against this guy is to hit all your shots on the line.
The Spaniard is the whole package: laser backhand, seamless defense, surgical focus, clear intent, Nadalian aura, and uncanny anticipation. Mary Carillo once asked, “Have you ever seen anyone who has the [same] sense of recognition of the rhythms of a clay court match?”
Nadal’s underrated and vastly improved serve is not as gorgeous as Federer’s. It’s not as distinctive as McEnroe’s or as fluid as Edberg’s. It’s not nearly as imposing as Isner’s, as classic as Sampras’s or as flawless as Pancho Gonzales’s. Still, it has a certain toss-and-blast grace.
But it’s Rafa’s whiplash forehand that is his signature. Think about it, no one in tennis history has hit a forehand quite like this man. It’s an explosion that hisses. Cross-court or down-the-line, returning serve or deep into a marathon rally, it dips within inches of the baseline – an uppercut with topspin that drains the will out of his foes. Brett Haber said Rafa’s forehand “has so many RPMs on it that it creates its own wind.”
After losing early in his career to Nadal, Stefanos Tsitsipas confided, “My brain was used to certain angles. But tonight against Rafa I was always on the wrong foot…He has a talent to make you play bad…I felt empty in the brain.”
After losing in straight sets Van de Zandsculp said, “Rafa plays differently from the others. The ball comes differently. He gives you the feeling you have to win the point six, seven times…You have to play a perfect game…Even when you go hard to the floor, he easily redirects it down the line…He makes so many balls…He plays the returns so high…He didn’t let go. It’s frustrating when you hit good shots and he still gets the balls back and, in the end, wins the point.”
After his win, the man who’s only lost four French Open matches was asked what holding so many records shows. He joked, “It shows that I’m old.” He added, “I couldn’t live without the special things tennis has given to me, playing in the best stadiums of all the world.”
Of course, it is Rafa who has given so much. As the sun begins to dip, Lenglen’s orange carpet takes on a golden hue. I ask myself, “Can watching a tennis player be a spiritual experience? “Heavens, no,” I think. Then I think again.
WHAT MAKES NADAL CLICK – TOP TEN REASONS WE LOVE RAFA
1. WHAT A BODY: Bulging biceps, thighs to kill for, a hunky chest that impresses, Rafa’s body is a marvel. His muscles have muscles. Too bad that, like some problematic Maserati, his chassis is in the shop far too often.
2. WICKED WEAPONRY: Nadal’s topspin forehand has everything: speed, spin, variety, weight. It pins, it flicks winners, it punishes susceptible backhands. It’s a jab, an uppercut, a knockout punch.
Many consider it the best in the game.
Rafa’s volleys are daggers. At key times he has upgraded his serve. His backhand is a laser. Aussie Darren Kane said that Rafa “positively bludgeons his backhand in the same way I’d attack a to-be-demolished wall with a sledgehammer.”
3. THE KING OF CLAY: Time and again we’ve seen him on a Sunday afternoon spread-eagled on an orange court. Coated in clay, his back on the ground, his eyes gaze into the heavens. And yet again he’s celebrating another topspin-happy triumph on the European dirt. One year, after he again had cannonballed his way through the clay court circuit, Rafa said, “What happened in Monte Carlo happened. What happened in Barcelona happened. What happened in Madrid happened. And here we are in Rome.”
No wonder Mary Carillo asked, “Have you ever seen anyone who has the same sense of recognition of the rhythms of a clay court match as Rafa?” Carillo then suggested that the only way to beat Nadal was to “hit the lines on every shot.”
No one has dominated a surface like the king of clay. Want some proof? Here’s some proof. He’s won 14 French Opens and has a record there of 112-4. He has a 474-45 record on clay. He once won 81 straight clay matches and he’s prevailed at 63 clay court tourneys. For years, few disputed the assertion that beating Rafa in a best of five clay court match was the hardest thing to do in sports.
4. RAFA’S RITUALS HAVE RITUALS: Nadal confided, “I’m lost if I don’t have my rituals.”
The man who tells us he doesn’t like to sleep because he considers it a waste of time leaps up in entry corridors before emerging into tennis arenas. He sprints out early to the baseline before matches. He fusses over his hair. With Rafa, flicks and twitches morph into an art form. He pulls at his wedgies and, of course, meticulously arranges his water bottles, then rearranges them with a precision that would make any surgeon proud.
What’s that about?
Well, it’s said that, “Nadal likes two water bottles placed at his right foot…He always drinks the bottle on the left-hand side first, and places them delicately back in the same spot when he’s finished.” Rarely has a buff linebacker-like athlete had such delicacy. Aussie Todd Woodbridge noted that once Rafa stops playing, he will “be very good at housework. His sock drawer will be in order.”
And, of course, tennis historians would never dare forget one of the key stats in the game: Rafa’s foes are 0-2 after intentionally tipping over one of his precious bottles.
In Rafa’s early years he sported long pirate pants and breezy shirts that showcased his Popeye-worthy muscularity.
At the 2004 Davis Cup, Christopher Clarey noted that Rafa “wears his emotions on his sleeve, which would have been an appropriate metaphor if he had not worn a sleeveless shirt.”
5. RAFA-ISMS: Nadal’s English is a delight. At times it seems like it’s going off the rails. Then he seamlessly makes inspired, almost poetic, corrections. Plus, his “Rafa-isms” are tennis’ answer to “Yogisms,” the delightful if perplexing verbal koans that Yankee catcher Yogi Berra long provided. Rafa once told us, “I was just trying to not do something very good, but not doing something very bad.” Another time he informed us, “When you take decisions, you have mistakes or you don’t.”
But don’t be fooled. In his own way, Rafa’s a reflective thinker. He once told IT, “Doubts are a part of this life. Doubts are good. I doubt about myself. Persons who don’t have doubts are arrogant or not intelligent.”
He says, “My job is to find myself.” Okay Rafa, let’s take this deeper. Do you believe in God? “It’s hard to say ‘I don’t believe in God,’ he replied. “I would love to know if God exists. But it’s very difficult for me to believe…If God exists, he’s intelligent enough to do the important things, the right things.”
6. CRAZY COMMITMENT: No one hits a tennis ball with more intention. No one stays in every single point like Rafa. He runs down everything and never surrenders.
Similarly, time and again, he’s battled to come back and save his career.
Uncle Toni recalled, “When he was young, every practice was like a final. [He] cannot understand life without this commitment…It is the most important thing in life…His opponents know that. His father told him, ‘You don’t have to go for that ball because you cannot arrive,’ and he said, ‘No, no, no – it is better to go for it.’”
While explaining why commitment is so important, Toni noted, “The inspiration has to be in the work. It’s the same for a painter, a sportsman, a journalist – for everyone.”
7. WILL, FURY, AND PAIN: Rafa’s symbol is the bull – that sure rings true. But he’s a lion, too. He pounces. His don’t-tread-on-me defense withers foes. This man’s fury and unblinking intensity are his essence.
The Tennis Channel said that Rafa “needs the pain, he needs the conflict, he needs the antagonistic nature of competition.”
After being pummeled by Nadal, Stefanos Tsitsipas confided, “My brain was used to certain angles. But tonight against Rafa I was always on the wrong foot…He has a talent to make you play bad…I felt empty in the brain.”
8. THE RIVALRY: The battles between Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert were something else. Rafa and Djokovic have faced off 60 times.
Still, there was nothing like the Nadal–Federer rivalry. Their battles always sizzled and their 2008 Wimbledon final, won by Nadal, was the greatest match of all time.
The duo gave us a mosaic of gifts: will and fury, beauty and grace. Throngs gathered to relish these athletic gods. Some traveled thousands of miles just to see them practice. Poets and sages sang their praises.
At one point when Roger and Rafa had won 21 of 23 Slams, John McEnroe joked they were “nasty, stingy people. They are not sharing a lot of majors.” Ion Tiriac commented that Roger plays the piano on court while Rafa plays the drums. Federer’s trainer, Pierre Paganini, suggested that Rafa was “a fighter who became an artist, while Roger was an artist who became a fighter.”
While reflecting on Federer, Nadal said, “There are just two things we probably share…passion for the competition, and the spirit of improvement all the time.”
For his part, Federer noted that he would have had an amazing clay court career if Rafa hadn’t been around. Then he stated the obvious, saying, “There will never be a rivalry like ours.” He advised Rafa, “Keep playing – tennis needs you.”
Christopher Clarey said, “Basically, if you haven’t seen Federer or Nadal play, you have not lived 21st-century life to the fullest.”
9. HE’S GOT GAME: There’s a reason Rafa has won 22 Slams. Nadal’s fitness advisor, Angel Cotorro, said he “mixes the explosive pace of a 200-meter sprinter with the resistance of a marathon runner.” The Tennis Channel added, “You have to have a protractor to figure out the angles Rafa is getting.” Federer admitted that “Nadal’s game is so unique that I can’t find a practice partner to replicate it.”
To Jim Courier, Rafa is “the best pure competitor in men’s tennis I’ve ever seen.” He added, “The pace he generates when he is moving away from his target is just ridiculous…It’s a little bit unfair to have that much power and that much finesse.”
Not surprisingly, Nadal’s beatdowns bring fisticuffs to mind. Aussie John Millman said playing against Rafa was “relentless abuse. It’s like a boxing match where you’re getting hit again and again.” Rafa’s force, said Courier, brings to mind what they said about boxer Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
When it comes to fierce desire combined with sublime skill, Rafa is in the same conversation with Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Pete Rose, Wayne Gretzky, Lionel Messi, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Kobe, Lebron and Serena.
10 A GENTLE, HUMBLE WARRIOR: John McEnroe asked, “How can someone like Rafa be so humble and cocky at the same time?”
As we have seen for decades, this warrior somehow manages to leave his combative ferocity on the tennis court.
After a wretched Wimbledon loss, Rafa said, “I tried. I lost. It’s not a drama.”
As for the desire to have all the records in the book, he said, “You can’t be frustrated…because the neighbor has a bigger house or TV or a better garden. That’s not the way that I see life.”
Jon Wertheim reported that he heard one security guard in the players’ lounge tell his partner, “There’s the guy who is always saying thank you.” His friend replied, “Yeah, that’s Rafa Nadal.”
Has a superstar ever been so humble?
THE RAFA QUOTEBOOK
“Even at this late stage, Nadal plays like he’s broke.” – Jimmy Connors
“It’s heart – it’s as simple as that.” – Tiger Woods on the key to Rafa’s popularity
“The whiff of sporting mortality has done something to Nadal. He’s learnt how fragile, and brief is a career in sport…There’s a hymn we used to sing at school that encouraged us to live each day as if it were our last. All this year Nadal has played each point as if it were his last.” – Simon Barnes in the London Times about a decade ago
“He’s half-bull, half-bullfighter. Rafa displays an on-court, testosterone-driven truculence that might be expected to limit affection for him. But his myriad supporters revere him for his relentless effort and refusal to quit.” – Michael Mewshaw
“Rafa is Hamlet. He has more questions than answers. His implacable force has gone missing, maybe forever…For the first time, it’s possible to imagine him never winning another major.” – Sports Illustrated.
But since then, Nadal has managed to win eight slams, an Olympic gold medal and a Davis Cup Championship.
