Rafa: The Mental Toughness of a Champion

It is too easy to watch Rafael Nadal play tennis and assume that his game is all about brute force and physical strength. And of course, he embodies those characteristics. He is capable of using brute force to bludgeon his opponents, and he is physically strong from his unmatched work ethic during training.

But the paramount reason for Nadal’s success is his mind. Rafa, the self-titled autobiography written by Nadal and sportswriter John Carlin, provides a provocative glimpse into the enigmatic character of one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

One of the reasons for this common misunderstanding of Nadal’s cerebral approach comes from his impaired ability to speak English. Nadal is not particularly comfortable answering questions in English, although occasionally he makes a brilliant point in broken English, flooring observers with his perceptiveness.

This book bridges the gap for English-speaking audiences, providing a look at what perhaps Spanish-speaking spectators already know: Rafael Nadal is a mental giant.

“What I battle hardest to do in a tennis match is to quiet the voices in my head,” Nadal writes. “It is the player who manages to isolate himself best from his fears and from the ups and downs in morale a match inevitably brings, who ends up being world number one.”

That Nadal has been able to quiet the voices in his head enough to rise to world number one is a testament to his incredible focus. In match after match, Nadal has refused to allow his natural, borderline obsessive-compulsive tendencies to enter his mind during the heat of a match.

To explore Nadal’s on-court eccentricities and to try and attribute them to one aspect of his upbringing is a useless exercise. But one must consider the role of his uncle and coach, Toni Nadal, in forming the neurotic mind of Rafael Nadal. By repeatedly humbling his nephew for 20 years of his life, Toni Nadal may have manufactured Rafael Nadal’s greatest mental obstacles himself.

“He deserves credit for so many good things in my career, he also deserves blame for me being more insecure than I ought to be,” Nadal astutely writes.

Uncle Toni, as he is known to the world, not only turned his nephew into a great tennis player, but instilled in him an almost maddening sense of humility.

It is a humility that turns grating as Nadal wins Slam after Slam, every time telling the world that his friend Roger Federer is still the greatest of all time even as Federer stands at the net, weeping openly in defeat.

It is a humility that has its doubters, as reporters and fans alike question whether Nadal’s image of being a humble, family-centered, quiet young man is simply the creation of a PR machine.

But Rafa reveals at least one truth about Nadal in revealing his surprisingly intelligent and strategic approach to tennis, and by describing his play-by-play thoughts through several of his most notable wins, including his 2008 Wimbledon victory over Roger Federer, and his win over Novak Djokovic at the 2010 US Open to achieve a Career Slam at the age of 25.

Nadal at times receives criticism in employing his simple strategy against Federer; a strategy of hitting endless balls to Federer’s relatively weak backhand. He says that the strategy is designed to “drive [Federer] close to despair.” In Rafa, Nadal admits that he has occasional doubts about using such a simple strategy against the greatest tennis player of all time. But the strategy works, a conclusion borne out of the fact that Nadal leads their head-to-head 17-8.

The book reveals Nadal’s thoughts about Federer, his greatest rival. Since Nadal has always displayed emphatic public respect for Federer, it surprises little that every word Nadal writes about Federer is reverent. Nadal admits to outright jealousy of Federer’s seemingly effortless genius, and of Federer’s unique ability to remain uninjured in match after match. He enviously calls Federer “perfectly adapted to tennis,” in discussing his own struggles with injury.

Rafa also covers several low points in Nadal’s career, such as a late 2005 foot injury and the split of his parents in 2009.

After winning his first Grand Slam in 2005, the 20-year-old Nadal was on top of the world. He had won 11 tournaments that year, as many as the only man who outranked him, Federer. His future looked bright to win more majors when a calamitous foot injury threatened to end his career.

There was no permanent cure for the injury, and Nadal’s doctor told him it might prevent him from playing tennis competitively again. Nadal’s father even suggested he could simply become a professional golfer if that turned out to be the case. But Nadal’s team worked together with specialists to create a different shoe sole that would allow Nadal to keep playing while managing the pain. As he won the French Open for the second time in 2006, Nadal felt as if he had gained something from suffering the injury.

“The frailty of the body, in my case, has made the mind stronger,” Nadal wrote. “Winning the French Open in 2006 meant that we’d come through the worst; we’d overcome a challenge we feared might overwhelm us, and we had come out the stronger for it.”

Nadal was tested again in 2009 when his parents split up just after the 2009 Australian Open. After playing a marathon five-setter in the semifinals against Fernando Verdasco at the Australian Open, Rafael Nadal found himself facing Roger Federer in the final with only fumes left in the tank. After a speech from Uncle Toni that apparently drew material from Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech, Nadal pulled off one of his most inspired wins, taking the title despite having the deck stacked heavily against him on his least favorite surface.

But on the plane ride home, his father told him his parents were splitting up, shattering Nadal emotionally, and contributing to Nadal’s decision to not defend his 2008 Wimbledon title. Nadal struggled for many months to achieve a sense of normalcy at his precious home in Mallorca.

Whether or not Nadal’s grounded public image is more real or more contrived, Rafa is the best chance available to delve deeper into Nadal’s competitive psyche.

The book provides an admirably comprehensive look at Nadal’s shocking fragility, when a less-involved autobiography could have sold just as many copies. It is worth a read, and perhaps a re-read.


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