by Ayo Ositelu
April 24, 2024
AS the on-going Barcelona ATP Seat Godo Open reaches its closing stages, more and more attention surrounds the latest Spanish tennis sensation, 18 year-old Rafael Nadal, who has been making waves in the ATP tour, and tearing down one barrier after another. Ranked only eleventh in the world, he has featured in two consecutive Tennis Masters Series events Miami, and Monte Carlo, winning the latter, and is considered by many as the man to beat in any tournament, on any surface too. Who is Rafael Nadal? How did it all start?
In 1999, at the of 12, Rafael Nadal in his native lovely home island of Majorca, had a difficult choice to make, between pursuing a career in football or tennis. In Spain, the easiest choice is football, a sport which has made millionaires and folk heroes of many, especially those who are gifted and lucky enough to play for fabled clubsides like Real Madrid and Barcelona.
For Nadal however, it was a very difficult choice to make. He was as naturally endowed as anyone before him to excel in either sport. And his task of making a choice was not made any easier by the fact that he had two role models who could have influenced his ultimate choice. One played football, the other tennis. Both are his paternal uncles.
The first role model is named Miguel Angel Nadal, a footballer and a fine defender with an imposing physique who was a regular on the Spanish national team in the last three World Cups and had a long successful club career with Barcelona F.C before joining Majorca, where he called it quits earlier this year.
The young Rafael was already showing promises of a precocious football star and striker as well as being good enough to beat older boys on the tennis courts.
His other role model is his other uncle, Toni Nadal, who with Miguel Angel are younger brothers of Sebastian Nadal (Rafael's father). Toni, who remains his nephew's tennis coach, is one of the reasons that Rafael picked tennis over football. Toni was himself a competitive tennis player who had some success on the national level in Spain. Rafael first hit tennis balls with him in Majorca at the age of 3.
"When he was four or five, he would come two days a week to the club to play, but he always preferred soccer," Toni fondly recollects. "Until he was 12, he played more soccer than tennis."
However, at that age, having won the Spanish and European tennis titles in his age group, young Rafael chose Tonis's game over Miguel Angel's game, and since then, tennis has not been the same again.
"It was clear that he had great talent, but it was still a difficult choice," uncle Toni added. "His father said he needed to make a commitment to his studies and to either soccer or tennis."
Carlos Moya, a fellow Majorcan, and Rafael's childhood hero, had already proved that it was possible to make it big, winning the French Open in 1998 and reaching number one in the world the following year. As a teenager, Moya, ten years older than Rafael, left Majorca to train on the mainland in Barcelona, the centre of Spanish tennis, and incidentally also one of the best places to nurse a professional football career.
When he reached 14, the Spanish Tennis Federation inevitably took notice of Nadal's enormous talent and massive improvement. Finding a budding superstar in their hands, they suggested he make the same move as Moya had made. But his parents were hesitant and later refused, partly because they wanted to stay involved in their oldest child's education. Remaining in Majorca meant that Rafael got less financial support from the Federation, but his father, a successful businessman who owns a window company, was prepared to pay for his training:
Explaining his father's decision. Toni said, "His father just felt it was the best decision for Rafael to stay home, surrounded by his family with people to back him up. When you're young and you leave home, the tennis can go well, but as a person, it doesn't always go well. We had problems at times with the training, finding the same level of players as Rafael. But with hard work, we managed it."
At 15, Nadal won an ATP tour-level match, beating a Paraguayan veteran, Ramon Delgado, in the opening round of the ATP event in Majorca in 2002. It is rare in men's tennis that such precocious success is not a harbinger of something grander.
By 2003, he was ranked in the world's top 50. By last year, he was, along with Moya, one of the leading players in the Spanish Davis Cup team that beat the star-studded United States in the final in front of record crowds in Seville, the beautiful city which hosted the 1999 World Athletics championships. There were many in the Spanish media who criticized the Spanish Davis Cup coach's decision to field the relatively inexperienced Nadal in the singles and the Doubles in preference to many of the word's most accomplished players on clay.
When Nadal responded by winning both singles matches and contributed in no small measure to his country's success in the all-important Doubles, the same media reversed their opinion and called the coach's decision "the best decision he has made in his whole life."
The only storm clouds have been injuries, which have been known to knock off or at least slow the progress of the best of them. Even in his young career, Nadal has had to suffer and endure a fair share of injuries. The most serious was a stress fracture in his left ankle last year that kept him off the ATP tour for nearly three months and forced him to miss nearly all of the clay court season, including last year's French Open, in which he has yet to play.
"Of course, that's been hard for me, because I had high hopes of doing well there," Nadal said. "Those are tough moments, but you have to keep working and stay positive, so when your time does come, you're prepared."
It is the opinion of many, not only in his native Majorca, or in the length and breadth of Spain, but throughout the world, that Nadal's time is here upon us.
He had started this year ranked number 51, but in an amazing start to this year's tennis season, he has compiled a 25-2 won/lost match record, which is second only to world number one Roger Federer's 35-2 record. Although he still languishes in the world number eleven ranking (he will definitely climb to the world's top 10, no matter what happens in today's final ) on the ATP computer entry system list, Nadal has undeniably been the second most successful player this season, his 313 points second only to Federer's 475 points.
Before heading for the Nasdaq 100 Open Masters Series at Key Biscayne, Miami, Florida, Nadal had three singles titles to his credit even though those were not major tournaments. But once at the Nasdaq 100 major in Miami, he glided smoothly all over the court and stroked to a place in the final, where he was only two points away from winning his first Tennis Masters title. He may never want to be reminded that he led world number one Roger Federer by two sets, with a 4 - 1 lead in the third set in which he also led 5-3 in the tie - breaker, before Federer fought back and snatched victory from the imminent jaws of defeat. That was on hard court, Federer's preferred playing surface, and Nadal's least preferred. It was only Nadal's second defeat this year. He has not lost a match since then, having gone to Monte Carlo, the year's third ATP Masters Series stop, possibly with a vengeance and determination never again to gift away a match which was firmly in his grip.
On the clay courts of Monte Carlo, Nadal breezed through 6-3, 6-2 against fellow 18 year - old Gael Monfils of France, 6-0, 6-3 against Belgium's Xavier Malisse, 6-1, 6 - 2 against Olivier Rochus also of Belgium, and 6-3, 6-0 against Argentina's Gaston Gaudio, the reigning French Open Champion in the round of 16, before engaging another fellow 18 year - old, Richard Gasquet also of France (the quarter-final conqueror of world number one Roger Federer) in the semi-final.
After having lost only 14 games enroute the semi-final, Nadal lost as many as seven games in the first set alone against Gasquet, losing 6 - 7 in the tie-breaker. The Spaniard then came back from a service break down in the second set to win 6-7 (8-6), 6-4, 6 -3 for a place in last Sunday's final against the back-to-form Guillermo Coria of Argentina, the tournament's defending champion, whom he beat 6 -3, 6-1, 0-6, 7-5 after a three hours and nine minutes slugfest between two of the very best clay court exponents. In winning one of the world's most prestigious clay court tournaments for his own first major success on clay, and indeed his first ATP Masters Series title, Nadal also reminded other members of tennis's new wave that he remains the leader of their group by beating fellow 18 - year-olds, Gael Monfils and Richard Grasquet both of France.
And so, Nadal, the newly crowned Monte Carlo Masters champion has opened a new age of men's tennis at its young and colourful best. At just 18 and camera-friendly in his orange, cropped - sleeve shirt with black trimmings, and trend - setting three quarter length white pants, Nadal is one of a new bread of youngsters set to breathe much needed life into a sport too often dominated by anonymous, baseline sluggers.
If Spain can brag about Nadal's heroic, France can also boast of their own 18 year-old in the shape of Gasquet, who brought world number one Federer crashing in Monte Carlo, and who is described by the undisputed world number one thus; "He's dangerous. He's got the tools, and his one-handed backhand is one of the best I've ever seen." Gael Monfils, who won three of last year's four Grand Slam junior titles, and has already defeated reigning French Open champion Gaston Gaudio of Argentina in Qatar in January, is another French find.
Even the United States, which has long been looking for authentic successors to legends like Pete Sampras and the still - competitive 34 year-old Andre Agassi, now has great hopes for 15 year - old Donald Young, who became the youngest ever winner of a junior Grand Slam singles title in Australia in January.
Even as Great Britain now appears to ask their very own Tim Henman this question; "Are you he that cometh, or look we for another?", she is already muttering confidently about their 17 year - old Andrew Murray, who was the player who denied Monfils a junior Grand Slam sweep at the US Open in New York last year, and has since become the youngest ever at 17, to be named in Great Britain's Davis Cup Squad.
Nadal remains the leader of the ambitious and rampaging youths, but unlike his peers who are struggling to get into any kind of rhythm or consistency against the senior players, the Spaniard has proved that he can compete with the very best, and on any playing surface for that matter. F or the moment, watching him whip bold shots after tracking down the best efforts of others, is one of the better spectacles in sports. His vitality was an upbeat counterpoint in Monte Carlo as the city mourned the passing of Europe's longest reigning monarch, Prince Ranier III, on the red clay that best suits his (Nadal's) slashing topspin forehand and great footwork. But clay is hardly the only surface that suits him.
On grass, which many a clay court expert has described as "only suitable for cows," Nadal has never made such complaints or excuses. Instead, Nadal reached the third round at Wimbledon shortly after turning 17 in 2003. On hardcourts, he pushed Lleyton Hewitt of Australia to five sets in the fourth round of the Australian Open in January, and earlier this month, came within two points of beating world number one Federer in Miami.
He has also won Davis Cup matches for Spain on fast indoor court surfaces. Such versatility was part of the plan when his coach and uncle Toni taught him the game in Majorca, insisting that he polish his all - court skills in junior tournaments by rushing the net even though he could have beaten the opposition even more handily by camping on the baseline.
Are we then looking at the next great all-court player of the quality of Australia's Rod Laver, and Ken Rosewall, Sweden's Stefan Edberg, Romania's Ilie Nastase, and indeed Switzerland's Roger Federer? Time will tell.
But the 8th seeded Rafael Nadal has not done himself any disfavour the way he has been blasting away opponents at the on-going Barcelona Open, where he has defeated Gilles Muller of Germany 6-0, 6-2, swept past 10th seeded Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia 6-1, 6-2, and brushed aside Argentina's Austin Calleri 6 -2, 3-0 (retired).
Who knows? The popularly projected epic rivalry between Roger Federer and Russia's Marat Safin may just give way to a more exciting one between world number one Federer, and the leader of the "gang" of the world's 18 year-olds.
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