Rafael Nadal: The Man from Majorca

Few players have perhaps captured the imagination of the tennis loving public like the 25 year old Mallorcan Rafael Nadal has. Widely considered the best claycourt player of all time, which is no mean feat when you consider some of the names he’s up against for that honour, the Spaniard has managed to win an incredible six French Open titles, and his career isn’t over yet, not by any stretch of imagination. As a part of Spain’s ‘golden generation’ of tennis players, (with the Davis Cup team having won three out of the past four years) he finds himself ‘the face’ of Spanish tennis, perhaps their first real superstar since the much-loved Manolo Santana back in the 60’s.

In an era when not just Spanish tennis, but Spanish sport is on the rise, with their football team World and European champs, their basketball and hockey teams one of the best in the world and also adequately represented in sports like Formula One and golf, Rafael Nadal’s is perhaps the biggest success story of the lot. Born on the 3rd of June, 1986 on the island of Majorca, Nadal’s family was no stranger to sporting prowess. While Rafa’s father Sebastian was a successful businessman, his two uncles Miguel Angel Nadal and Toni were talented sportsmen. (Miguel Angel having played in the Barcelona and national side in the early 90’s and Toni being a former professional tennis player).

The Nadals were a very close knit family, and ‘Uncle Toni’, as he is fondly referred to in the tennis world these days, sensed Rafa’s potential early, taking him under his wing at the tender age of three! Unlike many professional tennis players who had to leave home at an early age to train in far-flung academies, Nadal benefited from having his uncle coach him, as Toni, having never made it big as a player himself, took care of his nephew and nurtured his talent throughout his formative years, even saying at one point, “I don’t want to believe that you have to go to America, or other places to be a good athlete. You can do it from your home.” By the age of 12, Nadal was already Spanish and European champion in his age group.

Having to face the first tough decision of his career, the 12 year old chose to pursue a career in tennis and gave up football, at which he was equally good. In May 2001, just a month before his 15th birthday, Rafa beat 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash in an exhibition match, a victory which gave him belief that he could make it as a professional player. Turning pro a month later, the Spaniard went from strength to strength, reaching the Boys Singles semifinals at Wimbledon the next year before becoming the youngest man to advance to the third round at Wimbledon since Boris Becker, when he did so the next year at the age of 17.

The performances were not going unnoticed and when he picked up the ATP Newcomer of the year award at the end of the year, the Nadal story had well and truly begun. A glance at Nadal’s career stats would suffice to call him one of tennis’ all-time greats. Ten grand slam titles, six of them at the French Open, a couple at Wimbledon, and one each at the US Open and the Australian Open shows his ability to adapt to different surfaces, something which he has worked extremely hard on throughout his career.

Having won his first French Open title in 2005, tennis critics were quick to point out that while he was a formidable claycourt player, he would struggle on other surfaces, as many players from his country do. Determined to prove them wrong, Nadal worked on his game, adapting it to the quicker hardcourt and grasscourt surfaces, triumphing on them one by one, as a Wimbledon title arrived in 2008, followed by an Australian Open title the year later and finally, becoming the seventh and the youngest man to complete a career Grand Slam with the 2010 US Open title.

In addition to these amazing feats, Nadal also has an Olympic Gold Medal to his credit, having won in Beijing in 2008 and has won 20 ATP Masters Series titles, the fourth highest of all time. Why is Nadal so good? A combination of immense mental strength and physical fitness along with one of the best forehands on tour. His muscular frame allows him to generate extreme topspin on a ball, while someone like Federer doesn’t use as much of his body, relying more on footwork.

The Spaniard seems to reserve his best for crunch situations, often winning crucial Grand Slam matches (especially against Federer) more in the mind rather than on court. Most importantly, the man also respects the game and has immense respect for his fellow competitors. There have been many great rivalries over the years from Borg-McEnroe to Becker-Edberg and Sampras-Agassi. However, the relationship that Rafael Nadal shares with both Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic is unprecedented in the history of tennis.

Nadal has always said that he considers Federer the best player to ever play the game and uses performances against him as a yardstick to measure his own performance. With Novak Djokovic, a year younger than him, Nadal possesses a more informal relationship, with the two setting a fine example for young fans all over the world with their regard for each other both on and off the court. Nadal, though, like any player around, does have weaknesses. A high susceptibility to injury, caused by his intensely physical game has cast big doubts over whether he would be able to sustain such a performance over a period of time.

There have been fingers pointed at him for his ‘deliberately slow’ style of play, that he takes too much time between points, thus flouting rules and even thinking that the game is bigger than him. Recently at the Madrid Masters, Nadal also earned the ire of Roger Federer and a lot of tennis fans with his incessant and exaggerated criticism of the new ‘blue clay’ in Madrid, with a lot of people seeing this as an excuse, especially after an uncharacteristically early exit.

While these points may be valid, at the end of the day, people are there to talk. There is no greater joy for some people than to look for and highlight flaws in a person, especially when they are at the top of their game and have earned incredible success, as Nadal has. At the end of his career, whenever that is, Nadal will be remembered as one of the true champions of the game, a player who always gave his ultimate effort when on court and had immense respect for the game and his contemporaries both on and off the court. In other words, a legend, a role model and an inspiration for many years to come.