Rafa

by Rafael Nadal

  The atmosphere was not as tense among my team as it had been before the Wimbledon final of 2008. My parents were there, and so were my sister Maribel and my girlfriend María Francisca this time, and in between training and competing at Flushing Meadow, we ventured out once or twice—braving the mobs—to the shops on Fifth Avenue, as well as to our favorite restaurants, and we even caught a Broadway show. (We might have stayed in a hotel in Flushing Meadow, avoiding the traffic on the drive to the tennis center, but to compete in the US Open and not stay in Manhattan was to miss out on too much fun.) Again unlike the experience in Wimbledon, not only did I sleep well before the final with Djokovic, as I had done throughout the two weeks of the tournament, but I was also able to talk quite openly about the match. There was no taboo about it as there had been at Wimbledon. I wasn’t dogged by memories of collapsing in the shower and weeping. But there was one thing we didn’t talk about. I didn’t have to issue any prohibitions, but everybody understood instinctively that the one thing we wouldn’t mention was the one thing on everybody’s mind, including my own: that if I defeated Djokovic I’d become the seventh player ever to win all four major tennis titles and, at twenty-four, the youngest ever to achieve it since the start of “the Open Era” in 1968, the year professionals were first allowed to compete in Grand Slam tournaments. In this period only Rod Laver, Andre Agassi, and Roger Federer had managed to win all four. Winning the US Open, the most difficult of the big tournaments for me, would be a remarkable enough thing, but doing so after I’d won Wimbledon, Paris, and Australia, would be—it was perfectly clear to all of us—the crowning achievement of my career.

  Yet no one mentioned the subject in my company, and the rest of them, as they told me later, never even talked about it among themselves. In a measure of how united we all are, to what degree every member of my family and my team really is a part of me, each had reached his or her own conclusion that they all should keep their thoughts to themselves. They sensed that by airing them they would put the entire enterprise at risk. We’ll never know whether our conspiracy of silence was justified, or even necessary, but what everyone around me understands is that before a match of this magnitude my mental state is as taut as it is fragile and they must treat me with extreme delicacy and care. That’s why Toni, Titín, Carlos, Benito, and Tuts must be friends as well as professionals, why I need a team around me sensitive to my way of being as well as diligent in their attention to my needs, why I want my family close by. That is also why I have to follow my locker room rituals in the same order always, why I must sip from each of my two bottles of water in each and every break between games. It’s like a great big matchstick structure: if every piece is not symmetrically in place, it can all fall down.

  * * *

  Murder on the Orient Express

  The ice baths, the massaging of the leaden legs, the vitamin supplements, and the pedaling on the exercise bicycle all played their part in achieving the miracle of Melbourne. But Joan Forcades, rather than take credit for the advice he dispensed in the moment of crisis, views the physical dimension of Rafa Nadal’s recovery and triumph in the Australian Open as just one element in a complex picture. “You’ve got to think Murder on the Orient Express,” Nadal’s physical trainer says, “to understand the secret of Rafael’s success.”

  Forcades is neither pretentious nor deliberately cryptic. In fact, his reference to the Agatha Christie murder mystery is an unusually illuminating departure for a man who peppers his conversation quite naturally with terms like “holistic,” “cognitive,” “somatic marker,” “asymmetric,” and “emotive-volitive.” His brain is forever finding connections between the world of elite sports and Shakespearean tragedy, or German philosophy, or Thomas Aquinas, or the latest trends in neurobiological research.

  “The point about Murder on the Orient Express is that there was one man murdered, but Hercule Poirot, the detective, discovered that a dozen people took part in the crime—all the suspects killed him,” says Forcades, who explains: “That’s the approach you have to take to get to the bottom of Rafael’s victory in Australia, and all the other victories he has had in his career. If you focus only one aspect, on how he recuperated physically, you’re missing a much bigger story.”

  Forcades spends long hours with Nadal when he is back home in Mallorca, but is otherwise removed from the bustle and drama of the international tennis tour. His distance and his analytical frame of mind single him out as the member of Nadal’s inner circle best placed to play the part of Hercule Poirot and uncover the secret of the success of the young man he has spent more than a decade training. In sifting through the evidence and putting the pieces of the puzzle together, he is guided by a core thought: the Nadal phenomenon is greater than the sum of its parts. This is where the fascination lies for Forcades—not in the details of Nadal’s training regimen. It bores him—to the point of irritation—to explain why Nadal doesn’t lift weights, or why he doesn’t run, save in very short bursts, or why he does exercise X or exercise Y to strengthen his ankles or his tendons, or why he uses particular machines or vibrating platforms or elastic chords to develop his muscular strength so that he can play for five hours at full tilt or maximize the speed of acceleration of his left arm. What is more interesting to Forcades is the manic intensity Nadal brings to his work in the gymnasium, on good days and bad, and how he sustains that intensity with cold clarity of purpose, transforming it into triumph on the tennis court. And, most interesting of all, is the question, where does it all come from? Yes, he is a great tennis player because he has great tennis genes, but that alone does not explain why he is a serial winner of Grand Slams. There are plenty of people born with the talent to play tennis at the highest level, and some of the rivals he routinely beats have more natural talent, arguably.

  “This question of who exploits his talent and who does not is like the making of popcorn,” says Forcades. “Some kernels burst, some don’t. Why has Rafa’s kernel exploded so spectacularly?”

  The first place to look for the answers is not in the legs or the arms but the head, “the most fragile part of the body,” in Forcades’s words, and the most decisive in determining victory or defeat in elite sports, especially in an individual sport like tennis.

  “Tennis is all about resolving emergencies, one emergency after another over a prolonged period of time. No point is ever the same, and decisions have to be taken constantly in fractions of seconds. The player who, when he makes a mistake, is capable of not remaining anchored in the recollection of the mistake, or who, when he strikes a great shot and gets ahead in a set, is able to control the rush of optimism and is able to continue playing steadily, judging each shot independently in the moment, at speed and under brutal time pressure: that is the player who is going to stand out above the rest and be a champion not once, not twice, but over time. In this decision-making frenzy, having a cool head is vital, and having a cool head depends on your emotional well-being. This is the single most important attribute that Rafael possesses. His state of alertness, sustained for hours at a time, is almost superhuman. It is the key to everything.”

  If Nadal has triumphed, it is because his head, his body, and his emotions, indivisibly interconnected, have been in tune or, as Forcades puts it, “in perfect synergy.” And the reason for this has been the consistently favorable influence of a happy childhood and ordered adolescence, and his enduring relationship with each member of his family and his team. This is what Forcades calls the “socio-affective” factor, which means, translated, that, unusual among elite athletes, Rafa has lived all his life within the shelter of a remarkably stable, remarkably conflict-free environment. “And one in which his parents and his uncle Toni conveyed the message from very early on that talent, without humility and hard work, will never flower. Humility is the recognition of your limitations, and it is from this understanding, and this understanding alone, that the drive comes to work hard at overcoming them. That is why Rafael—a role model for children everywhere�
��works with more passionate commitment in the gym than any tennis player I have ever come across; why, for all the success he has had, he strives with the utmost seriousness in every single practice session to make improvements to his game.”

  That “continuity” Nadal values so much in his life is something almost unknown among elite athletes, Forcades says. His coach, twenty years with him; his physical trainer and his agent, ten; his physical therapist and his press chief, five; and his family united behind him, almost a part of him, with no squabbles or jealousies in view from the day he was born. “Success of the type Rafael has, success that you know is going to put you in the history books: that’s very hard to handle. It feeds the ego and can drive you mad. That’s where you need the stability of a family who keep your feet on the ground. That is where Rafael has been particularly fortunate to have an uncle close to him who has tasted success and money and fame in the football world. People sometimes wonder whether champions are born or are made. Miguel Ángel’s example taught him early on you can’t make the distinction; that both things are true. Because if you are born with certain talents but you don’t train and be passionate about what you do, you won’t get anywhere. A great thing about Rafael is that the desire to keep learning and keep improving is something that’s in his blood. He knows that no one is a god, much less he himself, but his spirit of self-sacrifice—I’ve seen it myself, year after year, however high he might have scaled the Olympus—is superhuman.”

  Uncle Miguel Ángel, uncle Toni, the grounded mother and father, the wider support group of the extended family, the steady girlfriend, the fixed professional team who are all friends. and also, as Forcades remarks, the coy, self-effacing nature of the Mallorcan, combined with Nadal’s native talent and intelligence and drive, all add up to a sum much greater than the visible parts. “Rafael’s intricate emotional safety net has freed his mind and body to allow him to get the best out of himself. Without it, the effectiveness of my physical training with him would be a fraction of what it is. Without it, it is unimaginable that he would have developed into the uniquely fit and strong tennis player that he is, capable of the mental sharpness necessary to make the snap decisions that determine the outcome, under circumstances of heavy expectation and extreme nerves, in the final of a Grand Slam tennis tournament. Because, the point is, you cannot separate the person from the athlete. And the person comes first. Rafa has succeeded because he is a good person, with a good family behind him.”

  * * *

  Photo Section 2

  (This page and next) Roland Garros 2005: my first Grand Slam.

  My first French Open trophy, 2005.

  On my way to the Wimbledon final, 2008.

  (This page and next) Moments of triumph at the Wimbledon 2008 final.

  Shaking hands with Federer at the end of the Wimbledon final, 2008.

  With the Spanish flag after embracing my family at Wimbledon’s Centre Court, 2008. Also in the picture: my father, my mother, Toni, Tuts, and Titín, just visible.

  The Australian Open final vs. Federer in 2009, playing through the exhaustion.

  Australia 2009: I collect my third Grand Slam.

  I commiserate with Federer after the Australian Open final, 2009.

  On my way to a comfortable French Open final victory against Robin Soderling in 2010, my best year.

  Winning the French Open final 2010, the first of three Grand Slams that year.

  Relaxed after winning the French Open, 2010.

  Another Grand Slam final victory, against Tomas Berdych at Wimbledon, 2010.

  I win my second Wimbledon, 2010.

  Celebrating Wimbledon victory, 2010.

  Holding the Wimbledon trophy at the gala dinner on the night of the final.

  I celebrate winning the US Open, 2010, against Novak Djokovic in four sets.

  On my knees at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Flushing Meadows, New York, 2010.

  I bite the US Open trophy, the one that completes my Grand Slam.

  CHAPTER 8

  PARADISE LOST

  The music ceased, a sure sign that the match at Arthur Ashe Stadium was about to begin. My eardrums had received a pounding during the warm-up—no hearing the echo of your own shot here—but now we were off. The 2010 US Open final had begun, with Djokovic serving. And in bright afternoon sunshine, after the previous day’s rain.

  The first point, stretching to twenty-one shots, was a great one for the fans but not so much for me, since Djokovic won it, but I always try to see things in the best light, and there had been much to salvage. I had gone through practically my whole repertory of shots during the rally, starting with a deep and low sliced backhand return of his first serve, some solid forehands, a powerfully punched backhand. I’d struck them all well and I’d controlled the point, keeping him on the defensive—until I went for a drop. Not a hesitant or a craven drop; a calculated, attacking one. But he was too quick—Djokovic is very quick, it was just as well to be reminded of this early on—and I was able only to snatch lamely at his lobbed return high on the backhand, allowing him to put away a simple mid-court winner.

  Fifteen-love down but no reason at all to feel discouraged. I was feeling those good sensations again, seeing and hearing the ball well. To “hear” the ball, a term Joan Forcades likes, is to strike just the right note in each shot you make; it means the contact between racket and ball is fluent, that your head and body are in tune.

  I wasn’t deceiving myself about the odds. Djokovic went for too much on the next point and hit a forehand long; then he himself tried a drop shot, a poor one that let me whip a cross-court backhand way past his reach, then a wild and long backhand followed by my winner down. I’d broken him on the first game, and a better start would have been impossible. Now at 1–0 up, it was my serve: another cause to celebrate, for rarely in my career had I served better than at this US Open. On my way to the final I had not dropped a set and had only lost my serve twice in ninety-one games. There was a reason for this.

  I had taken a decision at the start of the tournament to make a slight alteration to my grip, trading a measure of slice for greater power, getting the head of the racket to strike the ball more full-on. It was risky, but it worked. My service has never been one of my strong points. It is not a shot I deliver with as much conviction as my ground stroke. My movements are not as mechanized as Federer’s, for example, and sometimes, especially when things get tense, I can lose my rhythm. I don’t toss the ball as high as I should and my body tightens up. This might be an instance where playing tennis left-handed, while being right-handed in most other things, confuses the mental circuitry. Something doesn’t always work as reliably as it might in the coordination between brain and body.

  But in this US Open I served like a dream, blasting down lots of good first serves and winning a lot more “free points” than I usually do. The economy of the big serve was something I had long envied in other players, but not during this tournament. The upshot was that I covered less ground than I usually do on my way to a final, allowing me to conserve energy and arrive at the match against Djokovic in a state of physical well-being that could not have been further removed from the way I had felt going into the Australian Open final the year before.

  Never had I embarked on a US Open campaign feeling fresher. My body and mind were relaxed, and when I arrived in New York on the Monday a week before the tournament began, I played a round of golf, and another one the next day. Then, Toni’s arrival from Mallorca on the Wednesday signaled a return to maximum intensity and full-on, peak training.

  The particular work I had put into my serve paid off in the second game of the final. I seized the early chance Djokovic had unexpectedly handed me to go 2–0 up. But then he came back, winning his serve and breaking my next one, after playing some blinding shots, to put the score at 2–2. Amazingly for a match of this importance on a surface that suits the server, I then broke him again—three breaks in five games. I won it with a deep winner to his forehand side after a br
utally long game, with one deuce after another. Order was restored, all the games went to the server, and I won the set 6–4.

  The record showed that I’d only lost one Grand Slam match out of 107 after winning the first set. But it was not wise to dwell on that statistic. There was always a first—or, in this case, second—time for everything. Djokovic was not only a supremely talented player capable of the most dazzling tennis on his day, but he’d also beaten me convincingly in our last three encounters on hard surfaces. I was grateful to have my chance to redress the balance; grateful, in the light of not too distant calamities, to be here at all. To have imagined I’d be in this final, going for the foursome of Grand Slams, would have been a stretch twelve months earlier, midway through 2009, a year that started fabulously, with the Australian Open victory, and then went from bad to worse.

  On the first leg of the long journey back from Australia, on the flight from Melbourne to Dubai, my father told me there were problems back home between himself and my mother. I quickly figured out he meant a separation was in the cards. Fortunately he had the tact not to tell me a couple of days earlier, before the final; otherwise, I would not have found the strength to recover from the semifinal with Verdasco. But that was only the tiniest of consolations. The news left me stunned. I didn’t talk to my father on the rest of the trip home.