When Nadal was starting his tennis career, his friend Carlos Moyá asked him: “I have been champion at Roland Garros, finalist in the Masters, number one in the world… Would you sign all that right now?” Rafael’s response left no room for doubt: “I don’t sign anything.” I was 15 years old then. Now, at 38, he says goodbye to tennis, becoming one of the best players in the history of this sport, and the second tennis player who has won the most Grand Slam titles, adding 22, only surpassed by Novak Djokovic with 24, and leaving breaks the mark of the Swiss Roger Federer with 20. Three figures who raised the bar of world tennis to unthinkable levels and who dominated the circuit in such a way that between 2005 and 2023 they won 62 of the 75 majors that were played. On 26 occasions they faced each other in the finals. In parallel, only eight more tennis players managed to register their names in the honors of the four major tournaments.
They are stratospheric records that shatter and completely break the legends of Roy Emerson who, with 12 majors It seemed unattainable until the appearance of a certain Pete Sampras, who achieved 14. We believed then that it was something unrepeatable, that the ceiling had been reached. But only a few years later, what for many has been the most complete player, Roger Federer, emerged. And when he had already established himself at the top of world tennis, Nadal and Novak Djokovic entered the scene. The question is, how was the Mallorcan able to open a gap between two tennis players as sublime and stylistically perfect as the Swiss and the Serbian, and even eclipse them on many occasions? Rafa did not have a great serve or very orthodox strokes when he won his first Grand Slams… But he had two values in which he surpassed anyone. On the one hand, unwavering self-discipline and an ability to overcome suffering; on the other, a lot of honesty. It will be difficult for anyone else to be above him in these aspects.
These qualities allowed him to build a career full of success, while improving all aspects of his tennis until he became the great player he ended up being. He became accustomed to suffering and pain from the age of 15, when he was diagnosed with a foot injury that could keep him from playing tennis. Constant knee and back problems followed. That made him stronger and allowed him to make the most of his abilities. The indestructible conglomerate that Rafa has been is explained in its entirety by the presence of his uncle and coach, Toni Nadal. He was modulating his personality since they started working together when he was still a child. He helped him at the beginning, when Rafa still had doubts, promising him that if a game got complicated he would make the rain appear so that it would be suspended. He explained that he had played in the Italian soccer league, and his stories were so credible that, when they played games in his garage, Rafa chose him as a teammate, rather than his other uncle Miquel Àngel, a Barcelona player.
All of this created a halo of complicity between the two that remained alive at the moment when the successes began to arrive. “Don’t think that you have done something important,” Toni told him when he won the Spanish Children’s Championship. “If you look at the list of winners you will see many names that have not arrived later.” Or bringing him down to Earth when he was already recognized as one of the best: “They admire you, but only because you are capable of passing the ball over the net more times than the others.” Thanks to his close family bond, he was able to show him the right path on many occasions or help him find his limits on others. No one else on his team had the ascendant for it. In Shanghai, after a Masters, Rafa left the elevator in sweatpants to attend a gala dinner. His team told him that it was not the most appropriate, but that no one would question him. When Toni arrived, he told her that she should change and so she did.
On another occasion, at the 2009 Australian Open, Nadal faced the final physically destroyed after a very tough semifinal against Verdasco. He had discomfort and felt physical pain. He was considering leaving. But Toni entered the locker room and gave him a thought. “You have the possibility of going out on the court, defeating the world number one (Federer) and becoming the first Spaniard to win this tournament. I understand that you are not well, but if I pointed a gun at you now and told you that I was going to shoot, what would you do?” “I would start running to escape,” he replied. “Well that’s what you should do. Go and fight to win the game.” And he did it. All these elements forged an unrepeatable player. Capable of not only winning 14 Roland Garros and thus becoming the best of all time on clay, but also of surpassing the great Federer on his territory, in the 2008 Wimbledon final. His career shone thanks to his mental strength, his dedication, his honesty and, without a doubt, his blows. He forged a tennis and human history, to a certain extent, irrational.
Manel Serras He covered the evolution of Rafael Nadal in his beginnings and is the author of the book ‘Chronicle of a Phenomenon’, in collaboration with Jaume Pujol-Galcerán.
