Rafael Nadal Is Happy to Wear the Crown

The Spaniard, who’ll turn 36 during the French Open, has become the elder statesman tennis desperately needs.

When Rafael Nadal is back on the island of Mallorca, where he was born and raised, he is neither a tennis star nor a global icon.He’s Rafa, who’s somehow connected to everyone. His parents eat at my nephew’s restaurant. His sister was friends in school with my husband’s sister. The selfie requests are minimal. Nobody cares what he’s wearing (invariably, a T-shirt, shorts and sandals) or eating (bet on some form of seafood pasta). When he fills up his car in his hometown of Manacor or buys bait in Porto Cristo, he does so without eliciting interruption or awe.

There are, however, a few drawbacks to living among familiar surroundings and remaining part of your community. For instance, when Nadal leaves for a tournament, everyone in town knows that he’s away. They know where he lives. They know that his plot of land—on a bay on the island’s east side, leading to the Mediterranean—is a drop-dead-gorgeous spot, prime for both cliff jumping and hanging out. When Nadal returns from the road, he often finds forensic evidence that his property was public property. “The beer cans, especially,” he says. “It means [kids] have a good time.”

Last year, however, the locals didn’t get much use out of Nadal’s land, as the owner didn’t spend much time away. And for a while it looked as if the kids of Mallorca would never again have months of free reign on the property. Ever since Nadal turned pro, 20 (gulp) years ago, his career has been pocked with injuries. Knee. Back. Arm. But the injury that flared up in 2021 was different. He’d had a rare foot injury, Mueller-Weiss syndrome, earlier in his career and had overcome it. But here it was again in his left foot, roaring back and bringing a stab of pain even when he walked around casually. Nadal’s doctors feared the bone near the top of his arch was simply disintegrating.

TPN/Getty Images

The foot injury limited Nadal to just seven tournaments last season. And when he did play, he was far from peak Nadal. It played a role in preventing him from winning the French Open for an absurd, mind-bending 14th time. By the end of the year, Nadal’s ranking had faded; the pain had not. He was the winner of 20 majors over his gilded career, part of a three-way tie with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic for the most of all time in men’s tennis. He was 35 years old, happily married and realistic about it all. “I am thinking no one can play forever,” he recalls. “If I don’t play [again] I should be more thankful than sad.”

But to the joy of countless fans—not least, those Mallorcan cliff-diving property squatters—Nadal left his island and got back on the road. His foot, however briefly, stopped troubling him. A chest injury that sidelined him in April healed up as well. His confidence restored, he managed to notch multiple tournament wins in 2022, and though he won’t be the favorite to win at the French Open, it will never be wise to bet against him in Paris.

This might be the most unlikely chapter in the account of his time on court. Because of his huevos-to-the-wall playing style, Nadal has always been always likened to the straight-ahead running back, who might turn in a few outstanding seasons but whose style was highly inconsistent with longevity. Federer once played in 65 majors without injury interruption. Nadal’s longest streak? 13.

What’s more, while Federer and Djokovic have always seen themselves as vital centers, athletes whose top rankings conferred a kind of authority, Nadal was always content simply being an athlete. He was plenty respected among his peers. But he would sooner double-fault on match point than wade into tennis’s political snarl. Now, almost 36, he’s emerged not just as the ATP’s all-time majors leader, but also its leaders’ leader, its outspoken moral force. Just when tennis needs him most.

Nadal will be wrestling with a foot injury in Paris, but he always summons his best game at Roland Garros :: Thomas Lovelock/Sports Illustrated

Technically, Nadal started his 2022 season on New Year’s Eve. Having just kicked COVID-19—because he needed yet another obstacle—he landed in Australia to play a tune-up event in Melbourne. When he checked into his hotel room, he did not anticipate a 31-night stay. After a few days of practice, Nadal took to the court fully aware, he says, that his foot might flare up and he might soon be back in Spain.

He started tentatively but won that event without dropping a set. And with neither Federer nor Djokovic in the draw, Nadal suddenly became the Australian Open men’s headliner. He warmed to the occasion. He met groups of kids on the court during practice sessions and dispensed life advice. While Djokovic became an international cause célèbre for his anti-vaccination stance, Nadal offered this: “We went through and are going through very challenging times worldwide, without a doubt, with this pandemic. I mean, I know tennis is zero important comparing what we are facing now, this virus, no? Tennis is just an entertainment sport for people, and for us is our job. In terms of importance in the world, is not important. . . . If there is any solution, and the solution is the vaccine, that’s it.” A smile never left his face. When he repeatedly offered the old standby, “I’m just happy to be here,” it felt sincere.

At the Australian Open—a major he’d won only once before—he blazed through six opponents, each younger than him, sometimes significantly so. In the final, Nadal was the underdog against Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, a decade his junior and winner of the previous major. Medvedev won the first two sets. Nadal then simply refused to leave the court without the title. He prevailed 2–6, 6–7, 6–4, 6–4, 7–5.

Nadal then won in Acapulco and reeled off five matches in Indian Wells before cracking a rib and losing in the final. Still, his record for the first 100 days of 2022: 20–1 with three titles. And that was before the start of clay season, when Nadal usually turns draws into boneyards.

Nadal is winning by playing the classics. Deploying his sui generis lefty game; the spin-drizzled shots that kick like a bronco; the thunderous offense; the relentless defense, neutralizing shots that would be clean winners against other, less dogged players. “Until you experience it for yourself,” says Adrian Mannarino, a French veteran Nadal defeated earlier this year, “you can’t imagine how hard it is to win points against him. He just gives nothing away.”

There is also Nadal’s sui generis mix of insecurity and self-belief. Nadal has long convinced himself that every match is a potential defeat. He confronts these stubborn doubts by bringing to bear supernatural levels of fight. For years this power of persistence won him all sorts of abstract praise, most often from opponents and former players. He’s a beast (Federer). He’s money under pressure (Jim Courier). He’s a stone-cold killer (Bob Bryan). Nadal’s level of fixed determination during matches is jarring, even to his own coach, Carlos Moyá, a former No. 1 player. “If I had 50% of his intensity,” says Moyá, “probably things would have been better for me.”

Finally, there is some data on Nadal to back up what is obvious to the naked eye. The ATP has crafted an “under pressure” stat. In that category Nadal is No. 1., and it’s not even close. He converts more break points—almost 45%—than any peer. When he faces break points, Nadal staves them off more than two-thirds of the time. He wins more than two-thirds of his tiebreakers and three-fourths of his decisive sets.

Nadal is, by his own admission, a creature of habit. He has what he calls his “rituals,” down to making sure his water bottles at the side of his chair are aligned just so. His practice sessions are famously intense, often lasting two hours, even in the middle of a tournament. They are also exercises in consistency. Says former Federer coach Paul Annacone, now a Tennis Channel commentator, “If you had watched [Nadal] practice as a teenager and watched him today, you’d see a lot of similarities.”

Nadal has, essentially, kept the same team for his entire career. That includes his physio, Rafael Maymo, a native of Manacor whom Nadal hired in 2006, when Nadal was 20 and Maymo was 26. Given the bodily wear and tear Nadal was absorbing, there were whispers he should hire a more experienced and credentialed physical trainer. Nadal wouldn’t hear of it, explaining that there was no replacing the trust he had in Maymo. With Nadal still winning majors closer to age 40 than 30, the results speak for themselves.

Yet Nadal doesn’t get sufficient recognition for his willingness to make small changes. Like a technician going down to the basement and tinkering, he has added dimensions to his game. A flicking backhand volley here, a twist to his serve there. Nadal paired with Spanish player Marc López to win the gold medal in doubles at the Rio Olympics in 2016. When Lopez retired last year, Nadal invited him onto his team.

In his ever-improving English, he sounds like a business leader (which he effectively is) when he sizes up the operation. “You want to have [faith] in what you are doing and know the history,” he says. “But you also want to be open to change and new ideas and new people.”

This recent blast of success often has Nadal looking backward. Asked recently for the origin story of his on-court aura, he paused to reflect and offered this, typical of both the depth and length of public statements lately: “The reason I have the right self-control or I have the right attitude or fighting spirit during my whole career is simple, because I grow with this kind of education. My uncle, my family, never allowed me to break a racket, never allowed me to say bad words or give up a match. They didn’t care much about winning or losing, but the most important thing was the education, and that I grow with the right values.”

Nadal is also looking to the future, and not necessarily his. He has been cautious not to gush too much, which would only stoke the hype, but Nadal is thrilled by the ascent of Carlos Alcaraz, a Spaniard who just turned 19 and is the brightest prospect in men’s tennis since . . . 19-year-old Spaniard Rafael Nadal broke out in the spring of 2005. Alcaraz, says Nadal, “has all the ingredients to become a major champion, no?” That Nadal so clearly influenced Alcaraz—from his modest disposition, to his commitment to breaking the Spaniard-as-clay-courter stereotype—is a special source of pride.

Nadal made a massive splash as a teenager in the early aughts :: Bob Martin/Sports Illustrated

The emergence of Nadal—and emergence of a proto-Nadal—couldn’t have come at a better time for men’s tennis. Federer remains a dignified and diplomatic figure, but his presence and sphere of influence have diminished, as he recovers from a series of knee injuries. Now north of 40 years old and a father of four, Federer hasn’t won a tournament of any size since 2019. The received wisdom is that he will retire this fall.

The longest-tenured No. 1 player, Djokovic is all too eager to replace Federer as men’s tennis’s benevolent despot. But he has proved time and again he is not up to the task. Sensationally talented as he is at hitting a tennis ball, he has similarly ionospheric powers of self-sabotage. The lone player in the ATP’s top 100 to refuse the COVID-19 vaccination, he starred in an international circus in Australia before ultimately being deported.

Unable to enter most countries until spring, Djokovic played only two matches in the first 90 days of the year. Though he will come to the French Open as defending champion, his reception will not exactly recall Lindbergh alighting in Paris in 1927. And given Djokovic’s eagerness—and this is no knock—for public approval, one wonders how adverse crowds will impact his tennis.

The younger generation hasn’t helped much, either. Sasha Zverev, the abundantly talented 25-year-old German ranked No. 3, is the subject of a domestic violence investigation and is playing on the ATP’s equivalent of double-secret probation after whacking his racket against an umpire’s chair at the Mexican Open. Medvedev briefly overtook Djokovic in the No. 1 slot. Unfortunately, that ascent occurred the same week his country invaded Ukraine; instead of being celebrated for his feat, Medvedev faced questions about whether he should even be allowed to compete unless first denouncing President Vladimir Putin. Medvedev has struggled ever since and will miss up to two months of action after undergoing hernia surgery. He has also, along with all other Russian and Belarusian players, been banned from playing Wimbledon.

Into the void steps Nadal. Athletes are supposed to be more jaded and less accessible as they age; Nadal has gone the opposite direction. The most focused and passionate competitors are supposed to be the first to burn out; Nadal’s matches still come across as sponsored content for intensity. The most physical player in tennis history wasn’t supposed to be around for this long.

By his own admission, Nadal will never have Federer’s easy grace or Djokovic’s crisp precision. But on he goes. All of which makes for a good reminder that in tennis, as life, magic comes in many forms.

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