by Rafael Nadal
This time I followed my script. The rally was a long one, fifteen shots. We exchanged a dozen hard baseline punches, and then he came to the net behind a deep drive to my backhand corner. This time it was me who got a touch of luck. The ball skimmed the top of the net, and as he managed to stab it back over, I ran diagonally across the court and scooped up the forehand. He was expecting me to hit cross-court. Instead, I went down the line, and the ball, heavy with topspin, looped in. Just. Djokovic couldn’t believe it. He issued a challenge; he was wrong. The screen showed the ball had gone in, by a millimeter, brushing the outside of the baseline. Djokovic crouched down and bowed his head, the image of defeat. Toni, Titín, and my father clenched their fists, screaming “Vamos!” Tuts, my mother, and my sister applauded, laughing with joy. María Francisca had her hands on her head, as if not believing what seemed to be about to happen.
Match point. Championship point. Everything point. I glanced up at my team, as if imploring them to give me courage, seeking from them some measure of calm. Fighting back tears again, I served. Wide to the backhand, as instructed. The rally lasted six shots. On the sixth he hit the ball wide, well wide, and out. My legs buckled and I fell to the ground before the ball had even landed, and I stayed there, facedown, sobbing, my body shaking.
Collapsing to the ground like that is not something you plan. I didn’t realize I was doing it. My mind stopped, raw emotion took over, and as the tension broke, so did my body, unable to bear its weight anymore. All of a sudden, as if recovering consciousness after blacking out, I realized I was stretched out on the court, under a cascade of noise, and I saw what I had accomplished. At the age of twenty-four I’d won four Grand Slams; I’d made history, I’d achieved something greater than anything I had ever dared dream of, something that would last all my life and no one would ever take away from me. Whatever happened next, I’d leave the game of tennis one day as someone who’d been important in the sport, as one of the best, and hopefully—for I thought this too at my moment of triumph—as someone who people considered to be a good person.
Novak Djokovic—or “Nole,” as I call him, as do his fans, friends, and family—is all of these things already. Extraordinarily gracious at a moment so bitter for him, he didn’t wait for me at the net but came over to my side of the court and embraced me, congratulated me on what I had done. I went to my chair, dropped off my racket, and came back to the center of the ring with my fists in the air. The noise of the crowd poured down on me, and I sank to my knees, sobbed again, bowed my forehead onto the hard surface of the court, and held it there. So, so much had gone into this and I had so, so much to be grateful for.
In the presentation ceremony Nole was the first to speak, and once again, he behaved with great class, showering praise on me and thanking absent friends. He showed himself to be the most dignified of losers and a credit to our sport. When my turn came to address the microphone, I thanked all the members of my family and my team gathered there before me, and reminded them of my life’s biggest truth: I could not have done it without them. I made a special mention of Joan Forcades, who was watching back home. Yes, Joan was right. The sum is greater than the parts, and the biggest part of all is the people around me. But I’d felt exceptionally fit and strong during the US Open, and that had given me an edge that day over Nole, and Joan had had a big part to play in that. I also made a point of acknowledging Nole’s attitude in defeat, and what a great example he set to kids everywhere. I said I was sure he’d be winning this trophy very soon, as I am sure he will continue to be a fearsome rival in the years to come. But this was my moment. For all the passion and work I had invested for so long in trying to make myself as good a tennis player as I could be, this was truly something I had never imagined. As I held up the US Open trophy and the cameras flashed and the crowd roared, I understood that I had made the impossible possible. I was, for that brief moment, on top of the world.
* * *
Manacor
The round of media interviews after the US Open final lasted three hours, almost as long as the match itself. Nadal patiently answered each question, the most recurrent of which was “What can you do to match that?” The answer, always the same, was “Work hard, try and be a better player, and be back here next year.”
At one in the morning he left for dinner with his family and his team at a restaurant in Manhattan, not to emerge until after three. At nine he was doing a street-side interview with NBC’s Today Show, and from there, pursued by a swelling mob of fans, he did as New York protocol required and posed for photographs in Times Square. Car horns blared, and a phalanx of police held back the screaming crowds. Then it was off to a couple of live TV studio interviews and after that an event with Nike hosted by one of his biggest fans, the charismatic former American tennis champion John McEnroe. Nadal swam in a sea of adulation. All the talk was of his records: the first player to win consecutive Grand Slam titles on clay, grass, and hard courts in a calendar year; the seventh player in history to win four Grand Slams, the youngest to do so, at twenty-four, in the Open era.
He made it just in time to JFK Airport for his flight home that evening, arriving in Manacor the next day, at noon. There were no brass bands, there was no welcoming committee, no fuss at all. That night he went out on the town with his childhood friends and next morning, at 5 A.M. New York time, he was back on court, hitting balls with his uncle Toni, both of them rapt and serious as ever, as if there was still everything to play for and little had been achieved.
The municipal sports center where they trained was practically empty. In the parking lot Nadal’s sports car stood out alongside three other vehicles; on the running track was a solitary sprinter; of the dozen hard courts, only one other was in use. No locals had thought it worth their while to come and watch, much less pay homage to the biggest global celebrity their town was ever likely to produce, the man regarded by many at that particular moment as the greatest athlete alive. Only two onlookers were there, an elderly German couple who took photographs silently, from a safe distance, having correctly sensed that the ceremony between nephew and uncle was taking place on forbidden territory. Nadal’s father, Sebastián, made an appearance later, but he knew not to interrupt his son and his brother who, in a telepathic trance inside their closed world, did not cast him a glance.
On a court alongside them two middle-aged men in shorts were locked in battle, scrambling around, as club players do, in ungainly pursuit of gently looping balls, paying no attention whatsoever to the supreme exponent of the game displaying his rhythmic repertory on the other side of the fence netting. They were not impressed, or if they were, they were not going to show it. Just the way Nadal’s family has always treated him; just the way he likes it when he is back home in Manacor.
* * *
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
1994
Under-12 champion of the Balearic Islands, age 8
1997
Under-12 national champion of Spain
2000
Under-14 national champion of Spain
2002
First victory in the Association of Tennis Professionals circuit, age 15
2004
Won the Davis Cup, representing Spain, age 18
2005
French Open champion: first Grand Slam title, age 19
2006
French Open champion
2007
French Open champion
2008
French Open champion
Wimbledon champion
Number one in the world rankings
Gold Medal, Beijing Olympics
2009
Australian Open champion
2010
French Open champion
Wimbledon champion
US Open champion, completed Career Grand Slam
2011
French Open champion: Tenth Grand Slam title, age 25
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I’d like to thank John Carlin, who made the experien
ce of working on this book a pleasure and an honor. Writing a book with a journalist and author of John’s caliber was in itself a great experience. But getting to know John as we worked together and traveled to tournaments in Doha and Australia ensured we became not only collaborators on a project, but friends as well.
Of course, this book would not have been possible without the support of many people. All my love and gratitude to my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my uncles and aunt, and to María Francisca. A big thanks also to my team and close friends: Carlos, Titín, Joan Forcades, Benito, Tuts, Francis, Ángel Ruiz Cotorro, Carlos Moyá, Toméu Salva, M. A. Munar.
And a very special thank you to my uncle, coach, and friend, Toni Nadal.
—RAFAEL NADAL
First I must thank Luis Viñuales, the great coordinator, whose brainchild this book is, as well as Larry Kirshbaum, who got the ball rolling. Also much thanks to my editor at Hyperion, Jill Schwartzman, who has displayed admirable patience and fortitude.
Special thanks to my agent, who is much more than an agent, Anne Edelstein; and to her assistant—far more than the title suggests—Krista Ingebretson. And a big thanks to Arantxa Martinez, whose hard toil and advice and good humor have helped a lot.
Otherwise, it has been an enormous pleasure to work on this book with Rafa Nadal, his family, his team, and his friends, every one of whom has been helpful, considerate, and kind.
—JOHN CARLIN
About the Authors
Rafael Nadal was born in 1986 in Mallorca, Spain. He has won a total of nine Grand Slam titles and career “Golden Slam”—all four majors plus a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics. He continues to live in Mallorca, believing he will never leave.
www.rafaelnadal.com
John Carlin, originally from the UK, is currently a Senior International writer for El Pais, the world’s leading Spanish-language newspaper. He wrote the book that became the feature film Invictus.
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Rafael Nadal and John Carlin
Except as noted otherwise, photo credits are as follows:
Photo insert 1: Courtesy of Rafael Nadal
Photo insert 2: © Miguel Angel Zubiarrain
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:
Nadal, Rafael.
Rafa / by Rafael Nadal and John Carlin
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4013-2451-3 (hardback)
1. Nadal, Rafael. 2. Tennis players—Spain—Biography. I. Carlin, John. II. Title.
GV994.N33A3 2011
796.342092—dc23
[B]
2011020769
eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0392-1
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Cover photograph © Clive Brunskill/Contour by Getty Images
First eBook Edition
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