The power of the mind - Rafael Nadal

7th of June 2013. The Spanish bull prods the Titian red clay and grunts over his defeated rival. His eyes shift to the crowd, and survey the faces, cheering in adulation for him. He tilts back his head to look at them and bellows his cry of victory.

Rafael Nadal belongs to a different species. Right from his childhood in Manacor, resilience has been fused into his DNA and into his soul. Throughout his career, Nadal has symbolised a tennis player out of the ordinary. Breaking the mould of elegance and grace, so often stylized by Federer, McEnroe and the like, Nadal was an athletic beast, whose game is built on the foundations of raw power and explosive down-the-line shots. But above all, Nadal’s biggest and greatest strength lies in his mind.

A young Rafa once played the entirety of an Under-15 Championship with a broken finger and still emerged victorious. Time and time again, in the face of injuries and adversity, Nadal has fought back against the odds to re-emerge every time, a mentally stronger person. What we saw yesterday was a show of Nadal fighting against odds and his own body.

At the beginning of Nadal’s self-imposed seven-month exile last year, the future was bleak for the Spaniard. Injuries had constantly plagued his illustrious career, and this was the ‘n’th recurrence of the knee problems that seemed to always rise back to haunt him. Would he ever return to professional tennis? Even if he did, would he be as good as he used to be? Would he ever win a Grand Slam again? There was no paucity of doubts and indeed, for all his bravado on court, Rafa is a fearing man, and these doubts would not have been absent from his own mind. But if Uncle Toni has taught him anything, it would be to never ever lose heart.

“You either finish off your opponent or fight till the world ends” is a rough interpretation of the mantra Toni fed Rafael with, every day, at every opportunity.

Before the match yesterday, the odds were almost evenly placed. Nadal was the undisputed king of clay and Philippe Chatrier but the injuries and their head-to-head record at Grand Slams meant Djokovic was in with an extremely big chance of upsetting the defending champion.

Djokovic seemed faster off the blocks at the start than Nadal, but it was only a matter of time before the 11-time Grand Slam champion got into his element and took the first set. Djokovic would take the second but Nadal quickly pulled a one-sided third set to restore his lead. Nole was not about to give up, even though his body seemed to be and won the 4th set tiebreak, forcing a 5th set decider. The last time these two went into a 5th set, the Serb had emerged victorious and memories of that defeat still probably sting Nadal.

Nadal went a break down in the first game of the 5th set and all of a sudden, it looked like the Raging Bull was destined for only his second ever loss on the clay of Philippe Chatrier, with Djokovic building up momentum. In many cases, the winner of the 4th set is the one who peaks at the right time and emerges victorious in the 5th set. But all it took was one break of Nole’s serve by Nadal and he was back in the game. You can never rule Nadal out – not at Roland Garros. He fought back and Djokovic then served to stay in the match, pitting one final attempt to resign Nadal to defeat or at least, delay his victory as long as possible. But Novak’s body and spirit could not keep up.

He served at 7-8, in a bid to stay in the match, but was broken by Nadal who refused to be stopped, his adrenaline coursing through the veins in the Goliath arms, his mind, heart and soul all focusing in tandem. A long forehand from Djokovic went out and it was Game, Set and Match to Rafael Nadal.

For Rafael Nadal, the match was never about prolonging his record or proving his dominance on the dusts of Paris. He is beyond that. This was to prove to everyone out there and to himself, that yes, although he did break down and crumble when life struck him with a blow, he bounced back. He was told to give up, told to stop trying and embrace defeat.

But that is not how Rafael Nadal works.

Tennis is largely a game of the mind and no one exemplifies that better than Nadal. He faced a physically superior and more fit Djokovic and yet, it was the Serb who burnt out first. Every time Nadal’s muscles felt like giving up, his belief would feed and replenish his energy like an electrolyte. Djokovic had to be attended to before the third set and also had a few altercations with the Chair Umpire, including an awkward – and later rejected – request for the clay near his baseline to be watered because it was “too dry and too hard”.

“I learned during all my career to enjoy suffering, and these kind of matches are very special,” Nadal said. “You don’t have the chance to play these kind of matches every day.”

Be it a turbo-powered forehand or a passive backhand, every shot Nadal played yesterday symbolised everything he has needed these past few months – grit, determination and every ounce of strength in his body. The power his mind gives him is like a strength-inducing, performance-enhancing drug – manufactured, produced and supplied by the belief of Rafael Nadal. It enables him to go for that extra lunge, leap that extra stride and smack that extra shot.

In situations where many would have been bereaved of hope and resigned themselves to fate, Nadal stood back up, lifted his head high and patted the dust off of his back. Where many would have been left to bite the dust, he rose from the sea of vulnerability and every time, returned a stronger man.

That is the power of Rafael Nadal’s mind.