Tennisreporters.net (sent to VR.com by e-mail)
by Kamakshi Tandon
May 19, 2024
Unless you're 6'0", have long, blonde hair and possess a punishing baseline game, there's no well-thumbed guide to tell you "How to Become a Sports Celebrity in Six Weeks Without Really Trying." Rafael Nadal seems to have found a route all his own.
The buzz that surrounds the 18-year-old Spaniard these days is at a level usually reserved for recent Slam winners, and looks sure to continue at Roland Garros for as long as he does.
Tennis magazine's June issue features Nadal on the cover as "The Next Great Dirtballer," ESPN The Magazine touts him as a possible debut winner, Inside Tennis has him lined up as Spain's main man to face off against the Argentines on dirt and People is doing a photo shoot with him this week. "Most of the tennis world expects him to become the most successful debutante at a Grand Slam tournament for almost a quarter of a century," says the latest sports section of the Sunday Times.
The twist is: It doesn't have to stop there. While most Roland Garros favorites find themselves relegated to the agate type when (if) they enter the All England Club, Nadal isn't likely to start being ignored. And it's all because of three little words: "It is Wimbledon."
In a Times profile during the first week of Miami, Nadal picked Wimbledon as his Grand Slam of choice, saying, "I like all the Slams, but Wimbledon is special. If I choose one to win, it is Wimbledon."
That seemingly innocuous observation, buried in the sixth paragraph of the story, was an "in" � a tangible, interesting piece of notable material on a player.
Little scientific research has been carried out on the number of "ins" needed for a player to become prime fodder for stories and columns, but observation suggests that a certain critical mass needs to be achieved. For Nadal, "it is Wimbledon" might turn out to be a tipping point.
Having said that, a lack of interesting background material has never been Nadal's problem. There's his precociousness, controversial "pirate" pants, famous mentors and relatives. With his expressive displays of emotion, distinctive face and bright shirts, he also makes for a great photo � a prerequisite for getting your 1,000 words these days. And he's even working on his English, as the AP noted in a Nadal feature following the Miami final.
Rafael Nadal steals the spotlight from the game's best player, Roger Federer.
All that was missing was multi-season appeal. Only Roger Federer and Andre Agassi have managed to find it in recent years, and no clay court experts since Bjorn Borg and Guillermo Vilas have. However beloved Guga Kuerten was in Paris, the love fest always stopped when the tour crossed the Channel, and never managed to regain its steam despite some glorious matches in Flushing Meadows. By spotlighting SW19, Nadal has at least stated his intent to conquer the Big W.
Already, in the period between Miami and his win in Monte Carlo, an article in the Telegraph had noted that Nadal "lists winning Wimbledon as one of his ambitions." A piece in the Guardian also mentioned that "his boyhood dream was always to win Wimbledon." Then a post-Monte Carlo feature in the Independent picked up on the theme, as did an interview in the Telegraph, noting, "Nadal has some unorthodox ambitions, coming as he does from a nation of out-and-out baseliners who learn their tennis on clay courts. He wants to win Wimbledon, the grass-court grand slam."
"I love the atmosphere at Wimbledon and the grass," Nadal said. "I want to win Wimbledon, but it might be difficult with my style of tennis. I hope to improve my serve and volley." He showed on the Miami cement, in that epic of a final against Federer, that he can adapt his aggressive brand of tennis to all surfaces.
This tune will only become more familiar once the grass court season arrives. Never mind that Nadal has been saying he wants to win Wimbledon since his first main-draw appearance there in 2003, nor that he's repeated it the magazines of several European countries over the last two years. Timing is everything.
Results do matter. While it's true that many a successful player has been relatively ignored by the media for lacking the storyline-photogenic combo often described as "personality," there are just as many fascinating players who have never had the wins to back up their stories.
Nadal's Davis Cup feats last November had already catapulted him into Spanish stardom and alerted tennis watchers that he was ready for the big time. When he showed the rest of the world by taking Federer to the brink in the Miami, everything was in place.
By Thursday in Monte Carlo, it was clear that Nadal was the man of the moment � on a day when Federer, Guillermo Coria, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Marat Safin were all in action, each of the four British broadsheets covering the event led with Nadal. His capture of the title was, in addition, covered prominently by The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. While that might have been mostly due to a staff writer's presence in Monte Carlo that Sunday, the two papers also chose to run a second story on the new star two days later. That piece was subsequently picked up by the Sydney Morning Herald as well.
By the time Nadal arrived back in Spain for a tour event in Barcelona the following week, Nadalmania had become self-sustaining. For the first time, there was not only coverage of Nadal, but coverage of coverage of Nadal.
"In a soccer-obsessed country like Spain it takes something special to push what they call 'el deporte rey' (the king of sports) off the front pages of the sporting dailies," said Reuters.
"Fernando Alonso and Rafael Nadal did just that this week. � Nadal has charisma, talent and good looks. The only matches that drew a capacity crowd at the centre court in Barcelona were those involving the Mallorcan. Every one of his matches was carried live on state television and his doubles matches pulled in more fans than most of those in the singles draw."
Inadvertently helping things along was Andrew Murray. By making his pro tour debut, he ensured a British press presence in Barcelona that week. By losing early, he allowed the eventual champ Nadal to fill the spare newsprint.
"The faces of Ronaldinho and his Nou Camp team-mates have been swept from their accustomed position on the front pages of the city's multiple daily sports papers and replaced by that of an 18-year-old tennis player," reported the Independent feature mentioned above. "Last Sunday, 24 hours before the Godo tournament got under way on the manicured acres of the Real Tenis Club de Barcelona, the magazine Tenis A Fondo put on display a thousand posters of Nadal at their sales kiosk to give away as inducements to buy the publication. They were gone inside an hour."
A Sunday Times story gave the specifics: " 'Nadalmania,' declared the sporting newspaper El Mundo Deportivo across its front page last week, and even El Pais relegated football to secondary importance by declaring the 18-year-old as a boy star with the mentality of a grown man."
HOW BIG IS YOUR LOGO?
And if there were any doubts left about whether Nadal had truly arrived, clothing sponsor Nike squashed them by choosing him to be its walking protest sign in Rome. The Reuters story on Nadal's burgeoning fame had already observed that "Nike have made him the centre of an advertising campaign in Spain using the slogan "Tennis has changed � get used to it."
But this was going a step further, as the Guardian reported: "Nadal's clothing provider, Nike, has used him in the past week to play out one of its own battles in public. In his five matches on the Rome clay, Nadal has sported a large 'swoosh' � Nike's tick-like logo � on the front and back of his shirt, and for the first three, another on the leg of the plus fours he has helped make fashionable this year.
The size of the logos is clearly illegal; the rules say a player can only wear one logo of a maximum four square inches (three at Grand Slams) or two of two square inches. Nadal's are about six inches in width, so are clearly a violation of the rules.
But not for the first time Nike has thrown down the gauntlet to tennis authorities. The company claims the three-stripes logo patented and marketed effectively by Adidas also breaches the rules.
Plenty happened on court as well. His epic 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(6) win in the final against Coria not only kept the wires humming but was individually covered by the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times and the International Herald Tribune. (Again, the last three may have been more writer- than player-driven. But, the stories were there nonetheless.)
Despite pulling out of Hamburg with a cut in his left finger last week, Nadal was still the subject of several features, including a long piece in USA Today this week. Last weekend's Observer was even moved to defend him against the qualification in Tennis magazine's cover line, arguing that "The Next Great Tennis Player" might be more apt. Clay is "a surface that Americans regard with suspicion, too Old Europe for their liking, terracotta-coloured and with a somnolent bounce," it continued. The conclusion: "Don't expect the young Spaniard to disappear after Roland Garros in a puff of clay-court dust."
If Nadal can up a decent showing at Roland Garros, the papers should ensure that he doesn't. After Paris, you see, "it is Wimbledon."
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