International Herald Tribune
By Christopher Clarey
April 20, 2024
MONTE CARLO It would have been entirely logical if Rafael Nadal had grown up to be a precocious soccer star. As a youngster, he was a promising striker, and soccer remains the sport of the masses in Spain and on Nadal's lovely home island of Majorca.
He also had an excellent role model in the family in his uncle Miguel Angel Nadal, a fine defender with an imposing physique who was a fixture on the Spanish national soccer team in the last three World Cups and had a long, successful club career with Barcelona and Majorca before retiring this year.
But at 12, Rafael chose a different game and tennis will never be the same because of it.
He has yet to match the early work of prodigies like Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, Boris Becker, Michael Chang and Pete Sampras, who all won Grand Slam singles titles as teenagers. But at 18, Nadal is making a habit of winning tournaments. When the French Open begins on May 23 at Roland Garros in Paris, he will be - if he can stay healthy this time - on the very short list of favorites.
"I am not the favorite," Nadal said. "It is going to be my first Roland Garros. But right now I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about the next few tournaments in Barcelona, Rome and Hamburg, and I'd love to play very well and only after that am I going to think about Roland Garros."
He played extremely well last week as he picked and hustled his way through a varied and daunting draw to win the Masters Series event in Monte Carlo. En route to the title, he beat fully credentialed clay-court masters such as the defending French Open champion, Gaston Gaudio, and last year's French Open runner-up, Guillermo Coria. He 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 Gasquet, both from France.
The only big points he lost were style points, as he stayed faithful to a tennis outfit that is a jarring mix of the old (calf-length Capri pants) and the glaringly new (bright orange sleeveless shirt with black trim).
But even if he had been wearing all white, it would have been difficult to keep your eyes off Nadal as he skidded along the baseline with his long dark hair flapping and celebrated his best shots with a leap and a fist pump.
There will presumably come a time when the fire and desire in Nadal's hard-running, big-grinning game starts to flicker: when the cumulative drag of money, fame or injuries will mean that he is no longer prepared to throw his solid body and soul into every match with teen aged abandon. For the moment, watching him whip bold shots and track down the best efforts of others is one of the better spectacles in sports.
In a week of mourning in Monaco for the death of Prince Rainier, Nadal's vitality was an upbeat counterpoint on the red clay that suits his slashing topspin forehand and great footwork best, but is hardly the only surface that suits him.
On grass, 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, then came within two points of beating the world No. 1 Roger Federer in the final of the Masters Series event in Key Biscayne, Florida, earlier this month.
He has also won critical Davis Cup matches for Spain on quick indoor surfaces. Though his serve remains a work in progress, such versatility was part of the plan when another of Nadal's uncles, 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.
Toni, who remains his nephew's coach, is one of the reasons that Rafael picked tennis over soccer. Toni, the brother of Miguel Angel and Rafael's father Sebasti�n, was a competitive tennis player who had some success on the national level in Spain. Rafael first hit balls with him in Majorca at the age of 3.
"When he was four and five, he would come two days a week to the club to play, but he always preferred soccer," Toni said. "Until he was 12, he played more soccer than tennis."
However, at that stage, having won the Spanish and European tennis titles in his age group, Rafael chose Toni's game over Miguel Angel's game.
"It was clear that he had great talent, but it was still a difficult choice," Toni said. "His father said he needed to make a commitment to his studies and to either soccer or tennis."
A fellow Majorcan, Carlos Moy�, had already proved it was possible to make it big, winning the French Open in 1998 and reaching No. 1 in the world the following year. As a teenager, Moy�, who is 10 years older than Nadal, left Majorca to train on the mainland in Barcelona, the center of Spanish tennis.
When Nadal was 14, the Spanish tennis federation suggested he make the same move. But his parents balked, partly because they wanted to stay involved in their oldest child's education. Remaining in Majorca meant that Nadal 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.
"His father just felt it was the best decision for Rafael to stay home, surrounded by his family with people to back him up," Toni said. "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 a 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 2004, he was, along with Moya, one of the leaders of the Spanish Davis Cup team that beat the United States in the final in front of record crowds in Seville.
The only storm clouds have been injuries. The most serious was a stress fracture in his left ankle last year that kept him off tour for nearly three months and forced him to miss nearly all of the clay-court season, including the 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 staying positive, so when your time does come, you're prepared."
He looked thoroughly prepared in Monte Carlo, and though he has a heavy schedule, including an opening-round match in Barcelona on Wednesday, it would be wise to prepare for something special in Paris, too.
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