Unrivaled on clay, Rafael Nadal extended his domination to all surfaces thanks to his mental strength and his resilience in the face of injuries, which eventually got the better of him.
With 92 trophies, the throne of world No.1 occupied for 209 weeks, four Davis Cups and two Olympic gold medals, Nadal has one of the most extensive records with those of Djokovic and Federer
With his 22 major coronations, including 14 at Roland-Garros, the 38-year-old Spaniard, who announced Thursday that he would stop after the Davis Cup in November in his country, in Malaga, is the second most successful man in Grand Slam behind Djokovic (24) and ahead of his great rival Roger Federer (20).
“Rafa” has crushed the competition in ocher for almost twenty years, since his professional debut in 2001, but reducing his palette to this color would be a mistake.
With 92 trophies, the throne of world No.1 occupied for 209 weeks, four Davis Cups and two Olympic gold medals, in singles (2008) and doubles (2016), he has one of the most abundant records with those of Djokovic and Federer.
In January 2022, in Melbourne, he became, after Djokovic, the second player in the Open era (since 1968) to win each of the four Grand Slam tournaments at least twice.
He himself places above his two victories on the grass of Wimbledon in 2008 and 2010. Especially the first, won in a legendary match against the Swiss champion, co-author with him of one of the most exciting soap operas in history sports.
But it is on clay, a terrain so demanding for the head and legs, that his art has reached perfection. During his career, he was almost unbeatable from April to June thanks to his uncontrollable lift and his supersonic slides: 484 matches won out of 535 played, more than 90% success.
His Parisian triumphs, from 2005 to 2008, from 2010 to 2014, from 2017 to 2020 and in 2022, are his masterpieces. No champion has ever managed to win the same Grand Slam tournament so many times… or any other category for that matter.
No one else has ever won 81 matches in a row on clay, a record set between April 2005 and May 2007, nor stacked 63 titles on this surface.
Born to a merchant mother and a business manager father in Manacor, the third city of Majorca, a Balearic island to which he remains viscerally attached, Nadal spent his childhood in a building where his entire family lived. Or rather his clan, such an esprit de corps united its members – in this regard the separation of his parents, in 2009, was a severe ordeal.
His uncles had a decisive importance: Miguel Angel Nadal, former footballer at FC Barcelona, who made him aware of the demands of professional sport at a very young age, and especially Toni, his mentor from the age of four until 2018 ( when his compatriot and friend Carlos Moya took over).
Under the rule of this uncle trainer, “the strictest one could imagine”, the little prodigy sweated blood and water at the tennis club right in front of the family residence. “He put a lot of pressure on me, used brutal language, shouted often; I was afraid of him,” says the player in his autobiography “Rafa”.
According to Toni, it was the price to pay for transforming a rather shy and fearful boy into a fighting beast on the court. And also as a gentleman: “Absolute ban on throwing your racket”.
Less technically gifted than Federer – even if we should not underestimate the skill of his left paw, which he only uses to play tennis, being right-handed – Nadal triumphed thanks to his mentality, to this ” ability to accept difficulties and overcome them, superior to that of most of (his) rivals”, in his words, and to his exceptional power of concentration, when he is “entirely immersed in (his) tennis, solitary, with an intense feeling of life.
It is also his “tenacity, commitment and combativeness” that Djokovic praised on Thursday when his great rival announced the end of his career.
His body has often been his worst enemy. From 2006, Nadal thought he was lost due to chronic pain (Müller-Weiss syndrome) in his left foot. This pain which comes and goes without ever disappearing became particularly debilitating at the very end of his career: he thus won his fourteenth and last Roland-Garros with his affected foot anesthetized.
Knee and wrist problems also kept him off the courts for long periods, not to mention abdominal tears. An injury to a hip muscle, which occurred in January 2023 at the Australian Open, led him to undergo surgery and end his season early, with the aim of a final return in 2024 in Paris: Roland-Garros first, then the Olympic Games. He actually played there, but far from his best form.
This immensely famous and wealthy man (nearly $135 million in tournament winnings, not including advertising revenue) describes himself as an ordinary person who loves nothing more than going fishing with his friends, watching football matches, football – which he preferred to tennis as a child – and spending time with his wife “Mery”, a Majorcan whose life he has shared since 2005. They had a son in October 2022, named Rafael.
