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A Highly-Strung Boy from Next Door
Meet both Rafa Nadals: the Ultimate Competitor on Court, and the Humble son of Majorca off it
Carlos Arribas
El Pa�s, Spain
Translation by: Veyonce
At tennis schools these days, before being handed their certificates, children are required to do one last exercise.
"Let's see, Pepito," says Ricardo, the tennis teacher at Santo Domingo school, in Madrid, to a shy boy with glasses - snatching the kid's certificate out of his hands. "How does Nadal do it?"
And for a split second, Pepito forgets his shyness, makes a fist and raises it into the air, forming a right angle between upper arm and forearm, trying to show some biceps, and shouts: "Vamos!" leaping into the air with a twist; the whole Nadal deal.
"Perfect!" says Ricardo, "now you're a real tennis player.
As if he was Rafael (Rafel, in Catalan, to his friends and family; Rafa to the media) Nadal - a very good left-handed tennis player with a devastating forehand, a hypertrophied biceps, a sleeveless shirt, pants down to his calves, a white band over his dark hair and forehead, a fist in the air, a very imitable image, very imitated. There is no reporter, English, French, or Italian, who does not make reference to his long shorts, his long, wavy hair, his muscles, his fist.
As if Rafa Nadal cares.
"I only think about playing, about my match; I'm not worried about fashion and all that," he says. "I've never liked to give the impression of being distant; I've always wanted to be just another normal 19-year-old who plays tennis; not an international celebrity."
He sips ice-cold water on the hot and sunny roof terrace of a Madrid hotel. He's come to the capital for a photo session and a press conference. His photographer, makeup artist and stylist are waiting for him at the door. Nadal reminds you of Mowgli, the kid who had no choice but to grow up, leave the jungle and endure human civilization.
"Sometimes they call me Mowgli. I don't care what they call me. I don't particularly like it, but it doesn't bother me either... I'm sort of clueless about what my image is. I can't evaluate it; the people around me do that better. I always say that if there are people who take a genuine interest in me, I appreciate it with all my heart."
He might not care about his image, but Nike - the brand that has dressed and taken care of him since he was 12, since he was the best junior tennis player in the world - certainly does. It was Nike that decided that sleeveless shirts, showing off his triceps, were the most appropriate model for him, after the look had worked successfully with Carlos Moy� - another Majorcan player and a friend of Nadal's. Moy�'s uniform is all set off with a spectacular tattoo. But Nadal's trademark would be below the waist: his white pants almost bursting at the seams from his powerful gluteus, the secret to his stability and speed when it comes to shifting direction.
"Yeah, these pants suit me; they're suitable and comfortable, and if the brand wants me to play in them, I'll keep wearing them. I'll do what they tell me. I always wear the same model, the same color for an entire tournament; not out of superstition, but because that's what Nike wants."
In the upper echelons of today's tennis scene is a loutish, rude, complainer; the direct descendant of John McEnroe, mad at the world, with a constant pout on his face. He's Lleyton Hewitt, a young Australian who likes to wear his cap backwards. Until very recently, he was the dream of salespeople who wanted to make tennis a sport not only for well-to-do adults. A bad boy. Does it get any better?
Then Switzerland's Roger Federer came along; the exact opposite of Hewitt. A quiet and methodical winner, without scandals. Surrounded by his family at all times, his girlfriend, his mother and father make up the company Roger Federer Ltd; total control. Not much substance for a good marketing campaign, in theory. However, just as Bj�rn Borg back in his day was capable of taming a passionate spirit and a messy personal life to appear on the court as an ice man without emotions, Federer also has the stigma of a champion; a transgressive personality.
It is common knowledge that no one stands out in any discipline if they don't challenge the establishment (and forget ethics). And in his own way, family and all, Federer was able to say no to the Swiss federation, split from his previous coach, who had been imposed upon him. He dared to spend a season without a trainer, in a world full of schools and teachers, where the rule is you can't be anyone without a technician sitting in the stands, making tiny corrections. A mature, serene transgressor; clean and polished. Could there be anything better?
"No athlete embodies the values and image of the Nike brand better than Rafa Nadal," says Teresa Rion�, who runs the Spanish office of the US giant. "He's young, irreverent, disobedient; he's a fighter that never gives up, not a single ball; an incredible competitor, a gladiator. And on top of that, he's the ideal son, respectful and well-mannered, a family guy, very mature for his age... He's got it all, he's a model of good conduct. And there's nothing artificial about him. Everything is a product of genetics, his upbringing and education."
"My arms, my physique; that's all natural. I work out, but I don't lift weights like you might think. Just a normal workout. And a good head on your shoulders; that's something that either you've got or you don't. My family has instilled values in me since I was a kid. My uncle has always made me give 100%, and that's surely the reason why I'm a player with a good mentality."
Transgressor ma non troppo. Really? Tiny details make all the difference. Everything becomes clearer if we understand what Rafa Nadal is not, and what he would have been if he had done what other people wanted. Rafa Nadal does not play the trumpet for the Manacor municipal band, as his grandpa Rafael would have liked, head of the family and conductor of the group; Rafa Nadal is not a soccer player like his uncle Miquel �ngel, who played for Barcelona, even though at school he was a skilled lefty, a great shot and a sound goal-scorer. Rafa Nadal does not play with his right arm even though he's right-handed in other arm-based activities like eating, writing and playing golf.
Rafa Nadal was never a junior champion of anything, even if he was the most gifted tennis player born in 1986. Not because he failed in the attempt, but because he went pro in 2001, just after his 15th birthday. Rafa Nadal does not live in Barcelona, training alongside Moy� at the CAR in Sant Cugat, as the Spanish federation has been begging him to do for years. He still lives with his family in downtown Manacor, not far from where they make artificial pearls and sell handicrafts made out of olivewood and leather. He lives with his parents, Sebasti�n and Ana Mar�a, and his sister Maribel; in another flat in the same building lives his Uncle Toni, who is also his tennis coach and teacher in life.
-Your uncle Miquel �ngel was junior tennis champion in the Balearic Islands, and then he gave it up for soccer. And you've done the opposite, trading in the soccer ball for the racket.
"Everybody's different. My uncle plays tennis well, but I think he was better at soccer, and in my case it's the other way around. I was okay at soccer, but I was the world tennis champion at 12, and European champ too. I decided to do what I was better at."
On top of it, he's tall, handsome, nice, a very good tennis player... And at 19 he's won the French Open championship, five tournaments in just over a year, all on clay courts, number three in the world and rising...
"I don't consider myself a cool-headed player at all. On the court, I'm a fighter. And when I score a point, I celebrate it. These are things I can't control. I don't annoy my rivals because I never do anything against them. I do it for myself and for my people, and my rivals it. Maybe at certain moments, depending on the match, but no one has ever complained... When you are in a tie break and you do a tough passing shot down the line on the run, it's almost impossible not to celebrate it. For me at least. Some people are very cold and can contain themselves, but I just can't.
Doesn't this perfect player have a single flaw? They say that Rafa Nadal will be another victim of the system that has created him, that he has reached the top too soon, that there will be injuries, psychological exhaustion, growth problems... That he would have been better off living a normal kid's life, instead of becoming a child phenomenon like Mats Wilander, Bj�rn Borg or Boris Becker before him.
"I don't know if all this has come too early or too late," says Nadal, "but this is the way things are. When it comes, it comes; you can't decide when you're going to win or not. Tennis is a very competitive sport and I'm very happy that it's come at my age. And anyway, I don't think this is the top. I've won a tournament that is the biggest for every player, one of the Grand Slams. Of course, that's a dream you have since you're a kid. You always talk about winning it, and when you finally do, you're really happy and all that. But it's clear that you have to keep training every day, just like always. If you want to reach the top and keep winning important tournaments, you have to keep working every day with the same humility and calmness as always.
Humility. Work. These are basic tenets in Rafa Nadal's life, qualities that his image sometimes conceals. When Rafa Nadal talks about his Uncle Miquel �ngel, who won it all when he played on the Bar�a soccer team, he does so with admiration and respect, but not because of his victories.
"My uncle is great because he was able, at the end of his career, to come back to Mallorca and give everything," he says, shaking his right arm, sporting two bracelets, one red and the other green - the first in support of the Madrid 2012 Olympics candidacy and the other from the Olympic sailing venue in Palma de Mallorca (the kid doesn't miss a beat).
"Sometimes I look at the newspapers, the magazines, the articles on me, the photos, but I don't go crazy. When I've got time, I have a look, but if not, I don't. The front covers of all the print media in the world that followed my win at Roland Garros - I see them as a reality that I have to assimilate, no more. I have kept on being the same person I've always been, day after day."
Maybe there are two Rafa Nadals. One quiet, hard-working Rafa that beats his hands into a pulp during practice under the silent watch of his uncle; always on his toes next to the net. His hands full of cracks and calluses; a worker's hands after months of beating a pickaxe and a chisel against a concrete wall. The same Rafa Nadal who, two or three hours later, heads to the gym to work with Joan Forcades, his physical trainer. With him, Rafa Nadal has discovered that he has a sixth sense, the gift of proprioception, the ability of the muscles to remember the position of the body's joints at all times and vary their contractions accordingly, to respond immediately to external stimuli. Proprioception exercises on unstable surfaces, such as giant balls, are the basis of his physical training, not weightlifting or bench presses as one might think from looking at his giant biceps.
"With Rafa, more than anything, we've done preventative work," explains Forcades. "We've got to prevent injuries, which are very frequent in tennis because of changes in surface, because of the huge number of matches played in a year, the constant trips..."
Rafa Nadal has had two major injuries in his career that kept him off the courts during key months during 2003 and 2004. Luckily, these problems have not reappeared so far in 2005, with six tournaments and seven finals under his belt, perhaps because the proprioception exercises are starting to pay off. His muscles, speed, the fierceness of his starts, his changes in direction, he works on all of these things with strange materials at the gym; conical pulleys, yoyos, vibrating platforms...
Then there's the other Rafa Nadal who is fiery and impatient, who will storm the court to play a match, any match. All those factors combined are what instill fear in his opponents, at least when they're playing on clay courts. That's what you call intimidation capacity, terror in the eyes of his adversary, who lowers his arm, offering peace, cedes points. Although Rafa Nadal seems to be unaware of the devastating effect of his stare.
"I have no idea what my opponents might be feeling. I do my thing, which is to always give it 100 percent. My opponents can do whatever they want. I have no idea what they're thinking. The match is won on the court; it's won by playing."
The match begins, and Rafa Nadal turns into a whirlwind, a chaos of smashes, a man in a hurry. Not true. Rafa Nadal is in another dimension, concentrating on his own little bubble, controlling every last aspect. The legendary Bj�rn Borg used to blow on his fingertips while he waited for his rivals to serve. Then, before serving, he would adjust his headband, wipe off the sweat from his forehead and squint between the strings of his racket. He had that capacity - the same capacity that Nadal has - to distract himself with tiny details after playing the most important points of his life.
"I never get angry after making a bad shot, missing a point, losing a match. I celebrate the good points, but I don't do anything after the bad ones. I've never thrown the racket on the ground because I lost a point. I control my emotions pretty well."
-And what about the interruptions like the ones you had to go through at Roland Garros, against Grosjean, when the crowd booed at the umpire, or against Puerta when he took an injury break in the final; what was going on in your head?
"The ten minutes with Grosjean were tough, it was a terrible feeling because the crowd was wrong. It was not a pretty situation and it got out of my hands. I wasn't able to control it very well. But after that, I recovered and I managed to get the game back on track, didn't I?"
-But what were you thinking about?
"The only thing I try to think about is the next point that has to be played, and that I have to win it. I tried to concentrate on my own game, but it's not easy. But there I was, and when I lost the set I started the next one concentrating 100 percent, knowing that if I didn't, I'd lose. That's what happened, and I won."
He won because Rafa Nadal, like all great tennis players, distinguishes himself from mere mortals when he's able to deliver the best shots in the most challenging moments of a match; where he's able to transform situations of maximum risk into magical, victorious returns.
"In fact, this year I've played very well at the key moments. At Roland Garros, during those moments, I played bravely, and that's why I won."
-How far does Rafa Nadal want to go?
"My aspiration is to be number one in the world. To achieve that, I know I have to play well on all surfaces. And I'm going to go as far as I can. If as far as I can is number two, well number two; if it's number three, three; and if it's number one and winning another Grand Slam tournament, which is what I'd like, to retire with the satisfaction of having done things well."
And he says all this at 19, with his biceps, his muscles, such a mature head on his shoulders... Because a smart head is like so many other things: either you've got it or you don't.
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