FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — Something’s been happening in Rafael Nadal’s press conferences. With growing maturity and vastly improved English, the 25-year-old has become incredibly insightful and surprisingly reflective. But not today.
After his 7-6(5), 6-1, 7-5 win over Argentine David Nalbandian, the Spaniard seemed distant, a bit detached. His answers lacked precision; his English didn’t seem quite up to speed. But so what. Chalk it up a below-par press conference.
Then, as Inside Tennis, returned in the pressroom, we heard one of American’s leading sportswriters curtly tell another reporter: “Turn around! Get back to [Interview Room] 1! We immediately pivoted, briskly walked back 25 yards and there was arguably the most fit player in tennis grimacing, his face subsumed in pain. He slumped down in his chair in the interview podium trying to cope with excruciating pain. He raised his hand to his face as if to comfort himself, went limp, his body seemed numb. After two and a half minutes, Rafa slid off his chair and vanished beneath the podium, on the floor and out of site.
My goodness. Hardened journalists and veteran handlers seemed in shock. One California writer complained, “Where are the emergency workers. It’s taking them too long. ”
Soon the pressroom was cleared. A stunned feeling permeated. After all, Rafa is so young, so fit, so vital and so, so important to the U.S. Open. Ironically, in his new biography, “Rafa,” Nadal writes, “Playing sports is a good thing for ordinary people: sport played at the professional level is not good for your health. It pushes your body to limits that human beings are not naturally equipped to handle.” So in this day and age of tennis players with coronary embolisms, blood clots and debilitating autoimmune diseases, one wondered. What had happened to the 10-time Slam champion? All wondered, “Was this serious?” Inside Interview Room 1, we saw that Rafa’s leg was being stretched, and over the next 15 minutes medical workers, the tournament director and very concerned family members filed in. Finally, word came. Rafa had merely suffered from cramps.
“What a relief,” we thought. The press handlers let the media back in, but insisted that there would be no questions in English. Smiling, in red Nike shorts and a gray polo shirt, Rafa was soon back in front of the interview desk and smiling, albeit tentatively. He used his arms to brace himself on the desk. Spanish broadcasters swarmed, microphones encircling Rafa. No English questions, the handlers again told us. Nadal explained, “I have to say in English? I just have cramping in my leg. That’s all. I don’t know. There are no questions. I already finished my press conference in English. I talked half an hour. I just have cramping in front and behind. That’s why [it] was so painful.”
Rafa — his arms crossed and no longer bracing himself — then spoke for 10 minutes in Spanish and at times laughed gingerly. Then slowly, amidst a throng, he tentatively walked, head down at times, out of the pressroom and down one of Ashe Stadium’s inner corridors. One could hear a handler announce, “He will have to do it [his interview with CBS] standing. And 14 minutes later, Nadal was on TV, saying, “Very hot today. I sweated a lot. I had a cramp in front and behind. I can [now] walk and everything. [It] happens a lot times in practice.” He told Mary Joe Fernandez that he’ll have to drink a lot of fluids, but he’ll be ready and in good condition come tomorrow. And Rafa’s longtime spokesman, Benito Perez-Barbadillo, told Inside Tennis, “Rafa’s fine. He’s on the way back to the hotel and drinking a lot of Gatorade.”
Nadal — the man from the laid back island of Mallorca, the man who is so fierce on court and so sweet off of it — has long been a player of so many contradictions. And on this scary afternoon, his collapse in pain was a ferocious scare that the Spaniard all but shrugged off. It was a frightening moment to many, but it was no big deal to Rafa. Just another day on the ATP tour.
