Notes from the Courtside
Photo from lovetennis.com
Rafal Nadal: King of Clay
It’s been a strange year for professional tennis. Wimbledon canceled the Championships because of the pandemic for the first time since WWII. Dominic Thiem became the first Austrian to win a major since Thomas Muster did in 1995. And Novak Djokovic, maybe the tour’s politest, most elegant spokesperson, was defaulted from his round sixteen match at this year’s US Open for hitting a ball out of frustration and accidentally maiming an elderly lineswoman. Adding to the weirdness is watching the French Open being played, not during a lovely May in Paris—but October.
Going into this year’s tournament the pundits were musing on Rafa Nadal’s chances of winning his thirteenth French Open (an achievement so unbelievable it’s almost absurd), while tying his friend and old rival Roger Federer’s record twenty major titles. They said the cold damp Parisian weather might be too much for the muscular thirty-four-year old from Majorca. Wilson had also replaced Babolat, a Nadal sponsor, as Official Ball of the French Open. The thought was the heavier Wilson ball combined with the cold temps would have Nadal’s nasty, split-finger forehand sitting up like a ball on a tee. If that wasn’t enough, the press also questioned the Spaniard’s soft schedule coming in (he’d skipped the US Open in early September, as well as the clay events preceding the French). But when had Nadal never shown up ready to play?
This is a guy who carefully and methodically arranges his water and electrolyte bottles just so on match changeovers. This is a guy who never starts slow. Nadal sprints to the backcourt from the opening bell and doesn’t stop hustling or take his foot off the pedal until the final ball is struck. Nadal didn’t disappoint in that category. Djokovic didn’t win his first game until the 54th minute.
Even after losing the first set 6-0, the nimble Serbian remained calm. There was no need to hit the panic button. After all, Djokovic was no slouch in the grand slam department, with seventeen majors under his belt. This was the 56th meeting between the two champions. Djokovic holds a slight 29-27 edge, though Nadal’s got a 7-1 record over his rival at the French. A win on Sunday would put him in rare company indeed, not only tightening the race to the record most-ever majors (Djokovic #18, Nadal #19, Federer #20), but a win would make Djokovic the first player since Rod Laver to have won all four majors twice over.
Djokovic’s strategy going in was to keep Nadal off balance with drop shots and crafty lobs then control the court’s middle with his two-handed backhand. But Nadal was onto him from the get-go. He looked fresh and rabbit-quick. Where Nadal was precise and cold in execution, Djokovic seemed flat and uninspired. Was Stade Roland-Garros’s near empty stadium (with Paris seeing an uptick in positive Covid tests French Open officials limited attendance to a thousand spectators per day) not enough to inspire Djokovic? Hadn’t he completely let go the stinging disqualification in Queens?
Nadal is a freak of nature. He gets bigger and stronger with every passing season. Most players over thirty talk about losing a step. They feel outgunned by the younger tour players. Not Rafa Nadal. His matter-of-fact 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 victory will mostly be remembered for his clean and determined play. He’s as dangerous as ever, the perfect blend of brute force fused with superhuman retrieving skills. In the end, nothing stopped him from tying Federer’s major record, not the weather or pandemic, not even the Wilson tennis balls. Before the French Open began he was asked about the obstacles in play with an October fortnight and a world under pandemic lock-n-key. “But this is what we have,” he’d said. “I am just staying positive with this…I need to find the best feelings possible with these conditions.”
It’s a telling remark from one of the world’s most tenacious competitors in professional sports. For all the talk about Nadal’s physicality and competitive nature, at his core he is an incredibly optimistic fellow. Where the next player complains about the cold temps or slower court conditions, Nadal sees possibilities. He may cut an imposing figure with his vein-popping biceps and match scowl. But Nadal is actually ego-less. He’s not playing an opponent. He’s not fighting himself. He digs into the moment the way a Zen master does his breath. Nadal teaches us to do whatever we do with pleasure and passion. To zoom in on the particular, no matter if it’s sliding into a drop shot on the terre battue or situating your desk coffee mug just so.
