Rafael Nadal as a Way of Life
The Spaniard defies all odds once again to become the greatest male tennis player ever, the only one to win 21 Grand Slam titles.
*Note: this is an adaptation of a piece originally published on September 17, 2018, which you can read here. After Nadal winning his 21st Grand Slam title at the Australian Open on January 30th, 2022, against Daniil Medvedev, I decided to adapt it and include the details from arguably Nadal’s biggest win ever.
The funniest thing? Most of what I described in the original article remains true today, more than 3 years later. Nadal’s greatness doesn’t have an expiration date.
This being said, let me tell you a story…
In Spain we have this popular expression that says “a que no hay huevos a…” . “Huevos”, synonym to perhaps more popular “cojones”, literally translates to “eggs”, and is a vulgar (and very common) way of referring to male genitalia (“balls”). The expression altogether means something like “I bet you have no balls to…”. This extremely powerful, ultimatum-like phrase, mostly used among young people, is usually utilized to challenge an individual or a group of people to do something considered risky or improbable.
Let’s first put everything into context.
Nadal, who was back on the court after 6 months out with a new iteration of a degenerative, chronic injury on his left foot called the Muller-Weiss Syndrome, as well as Covid-19 infection, was already happy to be competing at the highest level.
His road to the final was far from being easy, having to defeat world’s #12 Denis Shapovalov in the quarterfinals and #6 Mateo Berrettini in the semifinals. Rafa mentioned that just a few days before competing in Australia, he didn’t know whether he’d be able to participate in the tournament, let alone getting to the final.
Last night, after completing that miracle of arriving to the final stage, Nadal was getting crushed by Daniil Medvedev, the 25-year old — 10 years younger than Nadal — and currently the#2 player in the world, who at a critical point in the match was up 6–2, 7–6, 3–2, 0–40.
Nadal’s fans and tennis enthusiasts around the world were probably starting to build the narrative that Nadal deserved high praise for his effort, but that this was too much for him, that this time it wouldn’t happen. The towering Medvedev, playing like a perfect machine with no visible cracks in his game, was certainly making it look like Rafa’s victory was just impossible.
Against any other player, Medvedev would have cruised through the rest of the match to go home with the trophy, but not against Nadal, whom we’ve seen crawl out of some absurdly deep holes before. This situation, however, seemed insurmountable, even for him, given his physical state and the conditions he was facing. But oh boy does this guy like to prove everyone wrong!
Anyone who knows about Nadal’s character and ability to overcome adversity still held a glimmer of hope, still knew he NEVER gives up. At that point, Nadal, with nothing else to lose, probably said to himself: ‘a que no hay huevos a remontar estos dos sets’ (‘I bet you there’s no balls to come back from 2 sets down’)”. Well, there were. Of course there f***ing were. And, pardon my obscenity, they were HUGE, because Dr. Rafael Nadal has a PhD. in comebacks. He is the ultimate warrior.
One of the clichés you’ll hear from the commentators in this type of matches once you get to the decisive moment is that “neither of these players wants to lose”. No, s**t, really? They have been battling in scorching heat in front of 20,000 people in the biggest stage in tennis for five hours, being watched my millions on TV, with a Grand Slam title at stage, and you’d think one of them would want to lose?
This feat of coming back from 2 sets down at a Grand Slam event final had only occurred 6 times in tennis history, until Nadal decided this would be the 7th. The Spaniard was just tasting the 2nd set win, up 5–3 in the tie break, when Medvedev came back to win it and set himself up to win the Australian Open.
At that point, the Australian Open’s “win predictor” was giving Nadal a 4% chance of winning the match. Prior to the match, the odds were 64–36 in favor of Medvedev, also according to this algorithm.
Ah, to assess Nadal’s chances of winning through the use of data and analytics… What a rookie mistake. Nadal would take that 4% and turn it into 100%. Logic, history, common sense, the scoreboard… Those factors wouldn’t deter the greatest competitor in tennis history from simply trying to win the next point, and starting to build blocks to eventually put together the most remarkable comeback of his career.
Having won everything there is to win, at 35 years old, and with a plethora of physical ailments that have forced him to retire on too many ocassions, Nadal keeps running for every ball with his soul, not to prove anything to anyone, because he obviously doesn’t need to, but for the pure joy of playing tennis and, more importantly, winning.
Nadal is the best Spanish athlete of all time. For Spain, a country deeply rooted in team sports, with traditionally outstanding national teams in disciplines like soccer, basketball, handball or waterpolo, having Nadal as its main ambassador is both unique and amazing, because he represents everything that any person should strive for: hard work, persistence, leadership, hustle on the court, and extreme humility and simpleness off it.
In Spain, we are specialists in pessimism. Critizicing ourselves, our country, “the system”, and everyone in general is a common practice in any conversation. This became especially true after the 2008 financial crisis, which not only hit Spain big time from an economic standpoint, but more importantly from a psychological one. There was no room for optimism, as the country’s unemployment levels, still high today, hit an all-time record. The crisis impacted everyone, including people with college degrees, who were living comfortably with their families and had very respectable, high-level jobs, and who were now suffering. These problems were obviously aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit the country severely. All of this, added to the perennial incompetence and a series of scandals from the political class, made us turn to sports, which looked like the only firm rope we could hold on to in order to not fall off the cliff.
Nadal, along with the Spanish national teams in several sports, featuring world-class athletes like Andrés Iniesta, Iker Casillas, Pau Gasol, and other individual athletes like Fernando Alonso, Carolina Marín, Marc Márquez, Saúl Craviotto, Mireia Belmonte and Alberto Contador, among others, have embodied the “Spanish sports boom”, a phenomenon that started precisely in 2008 with the European soccer championship which Spain won for the second time after a lonely and forgotten title in 1964. Some of the athletes mentioned before, however, are not as well known internationally because they compete in minor sports like badminton, canoeing, or swimming.
Nadal has been “lucky” in that tennis is more popular internationally than other sports, but more importantly, he has been able to cross the gap that separates great athletes from legendary ones, achieving a status of icon and legend, not only because of his success on the court, but because of his humble, genuinely good, approachable personality.
On top of all of this, Nadal has always shown himself as a proud Spaniard, not only as an athlete, but as a regular citizen. Far from using his platform to promote political causes or exhibiting his political ideas, he has simply never feared coming forward to defend our country time and time again, shielding the unity of Spain as one of its main icons regardless of political ideology, and confronting a wave of “anti-Spaniardism” that unfortunately tries to diminish his success whenever possible.
As I just mentioned, Nadal is obviously the greatest Spanish athlete in history. But now remove “Spanish” from that sentence and the statement will stay true. He should be considered among the top 10 greatest athletes of all time, at the same level as icons like Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Tom Brady, or Tiger Woods.
For all of this, and for much more, he is an example for every person around the world, but especially for every “normal” Spaniard like me. He doesn’t just represent a reference for any athlete, every kid, or every person in general, but a model of how to live; a way of life.
THANK YOU RAFA.
