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Tóm tắt nội dung (trích từ tài liệu gốc): RAFA RAFAEL NADAL and John Carlin Contents Cast of Characters CHAPTER 1 - THE SILENCE OF THE CENTRE COURT "Clark Kent and Superman" CHAPTER 2 - THE DYNAMIC DUO Uncle Toni CHAPTER 3 - THE FOOTBALL STAR THAT NEVER WAS The Clan CHAPTER 4 - HUMMINGBIRD Highly Strung Photo Section 1 CHAPTER 5 - FEAR OF WINNING Mallorcans CHAPTER 6 - "AN INVASION OF THE PUREST JOY" The Longest Day CHAPTER 7 - MIND OVER MATTER Murder on the Orient Express Photo Section 2 CHAPTER 8 - PARADISE LOST Rafa's Women CHAPTER 9 - ON TOP OF THE WORLD Manacor Career Highlights Acknowledgments About the Authors Copyright CAST OF
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RAFA
RAFAEL NADAL
and John Carlin
Contents
Cast of Characters
CHAPTER 1 - THE SILENCE OF THE CENTRE COURT
"Clark Kent and Superman"
CHAPTER 2 - THE DYNAMIC DUO
Uncle Toni
CHAPTER 3 - THE FOOTBALL STAR THAT NEVER WAS
The Clan
CHAPTER 4 - HUMMINGBIRD
Highly Strung
Photo Section 1
CHAPTER 5 - FEAR OF WINNING
Mallorcans
CHAPTER 6 - "AN INVASION OF THE PUREST JOY"
The Longest Day
CHAPTER 7 - MIND OVER MATTER
Murder on the Orient Express
Photo Section 2
CHAPTER 8 - PARADISE LOST
Rafa's Women
CHAPTER 9 - ON TOP OF THE WORLD
Manacor
Career Highlights
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The Family
Rafael Nadal: tennis player
Sebasti�n Nadal: his father
Ana Mar�a Parera: his mother
Maribel Nadal: his sister
Toni Nadal: his uncle and coach
Rafael Nadal: his uncle
Miguel �ngel Nadal: his uncle, and former professional
football player
Maril�n Nadal: his aunt and godmother
Don Rafael Nadal: his paternal grandfather
Pedro Parera: his maternal grandfather
Juan Parera: his uncle and godfather
The Team
Carlos Costa: his agent
Rafael Maym� ("Tit�n"): his physical therapist
Benito P�rez Barbadillo: his communications chief
Joan Forcades: his physical trainer
Francis Roig: his second coach
Jordi Robert ("Tuts"): his Nike handler and close friend
�ngel Ruiz Cotorro: his doctor
Jofre Porta: a coach when he was young
The Friends
Mar�a Francisca Perell�: his girlfriend
Carlos Moy�: former world number one tennis player
Tom�u Salva: childhood tennis-playing friend
Miguel �ngel Munar: his oldest friend
CHAPTER 1
THE SILENCE OF THE CENTRE COURT
The Silence, that's what strikes you when you play on Wimbledon's Centre
Court. You bounce the ball soundlessly up and down on the soft turf; you toss it
up to serve; you hit it and you hear the echo of your own shot. And of every shot
after that. Clack, clack; clack, clack. The trimmed grass, the rich history, the
ancient stadium, the players dressed in white, the respectful crowds, the
venerable tradition--not a billboard advertisement in view--all combine to
enclose and cushion you from the outside world. The feeling suits me; the
cathedral hush of the Centre Court is good for my game. Because what I battle
hardest to do in a tennis match is to quiet the voices in my head, to shut
everything out of my mind but the contest itself and concentrate every atom of
my being on the point I am playing. If I made a mistake on a previous point,
forget it; should a thought of victory suggest itself, crush it.
The silence of the Centre Court is broken when a point's done, if it's been a
good point--because the Wimbledon crowds can tell the difference--by a shock
of noise; applause, cheers, people shouting your name. I hear them, but as if
from some place far off. I don't register that there are fifteen thousand people
hunched around the arena, tracking every move my opponent and I make. I am
so focused I have no sense at all, as I do now reflecting back on the Wimbledon
final of 2008 against Roger Federer, the biggest match of my life, that there are
millions watching me around the world.
I had always dreamt of playing here at Wimbledon. My uncle Toni, who has
been my coach all my life, had drummed into me from an early age that this was
the biggest tournament of them all. By the time I was fourteen, I was sharing
with my friends the fantasy that I'd play here one day and win. So far, though,
I'd played and lost, both times against Federer--in the final here the year before,
and the year before that. The defeat in 2006 had not been so hard. I went out
onto the court that time just pleased and grateful that, having just turned twenty,
I'd made it that far. Federer beat me pretty easily, more easily than if I'd gone
out with more belief. But my defeat in 2007, which went to five sets, left me
utterly destroyed. I knew I could have done better, that it was not my ability or
the quality of my game that had failed me, but my head. And I wept after that
loss. I cried incessantly for half an hour in the dressing room. Tears of
disappointment and self-recrimination. Losing always hurts, but it hurts much
more when you had your chance and threw it away. I had beaten myself as much
as Federer had beaten me; I had let myself down and I hated that. I had flagged
mentally, I had allowed myself to get distracted; I had veered from my game
plan. So stupid, so unnecessary. So obviously, so exactly what you must not do
in a big game.
My uncle Toni, the toughest of tennis coaches, is usually the last person in the
world to offer me consolation; he criticizes me even when I win. It is a measure
of what a wreck I must have been that he abandoned the habit of a lifetime and
told me there was no reason to cry, that there would be more Wimbledons and
more Wimbledon finals. I told him he didn't understand, that this had probably
been my last time here, my last chance to win it. I am very, very keenly aware of
how short the life of a professional athlete is, and I cannot bear the thought of
squandering an opportunity that might never come again. I know I won't be
happy when my career is over, and I want to make the best of it while it lasts.
Every single moment counts--that's why I've always trained very hard--but
some moments count for more than others, and I had let a big one pass in 2007.
I'd missed an opportunity that might never come again; just two or three points
here or there, had I been more focused, would have made all the difference.
Because victory in tennis turns on the tiniest of margins. I'd lost the last and fifth
set 6�2 against Federer, but had I just been a little more clearheaded when I was
4�2 or even 5�2 down, had I seized my four chances to break his serve early on
in the set (instead of seizing up, as I did), or had I played as if this were the first
set and not the last, I could have won it.
There was nothing Toni could do to ease my grief. Yet he turned out, in the
end, to be right. Another chance had come my way. Here I was again, just one
year later. I was determined now that I'd learn the lesson from that defeat twelve
months earlier, that whatever else gave way this time, my head would not. The
best sign that my head was in the right place now was the conviction, for all the
nerves, that I would win.
At dinner with family and friends and team members the night before, at the
house we rent when I play at Wimbledon, across the road from the All England
Club, mention of the match had been off-limits. I didn't expressly prohibit them
from raising the subject, but they all understood well enough that, whatever else
I might have been talking about, I was already beginning to play the match in a
space inside my head that, from here on in until the start of play, should remain
mine alone. I cooked, as I do most nights during the Wimbledon fortnight. I
enjoy it, and my family thinks it's good for me. Something else to help settle my
mind. That night I grilled some fish and served some pasta with shrimps. After
dinner I played darts with my uncles Toni and Rafael, as if this were just another
evening at home in Manacor, the town on the Spanish island of Mallorca where I
have always lived. I won. Rafael claimed later that he'd let me win, so I'd be in a
better frame of mind for the final, but I don't believe him. It's important for me
to win, at everything. I have no sense of humor about losing.
At a quarter to one I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. The subject we had
chosen not to talk about was the only one on my mind. I watched films on TV
and only dozed off at four in the morning. At nine I was up. It would have been
better to have slept a few hours more, but I felt fresh, and Rafael Maym�, my
physical therapist, who is always in attendance, said it made no difference--that
the excitement and the adrenaline would carry me through, however long the
game went on.
For breakfast I had my usual. Some cereal, orange juice, a milk chocolate
drink--never coffee--and my favorite from home, bread sprinkled with salt and
olive oil. I'd woken up feeling good. Tennis is so much about how you feel on
the day. When you get up in the morning, any ordinary morning, sometimes you
feel bright and healthy and strong; other days you feel muggy and fragile. That
day I felt as alert and nimble and full of energy as I ever had.
It was in that mood that at ten thirty I crossed the road for my final training
session at Wimbledon's Court 17, close to the Centre Court. Before I started
hitting, I lay down on a bench, as I always do, and Rafael Maym�--who I
nickname "Tit�n"--bent and stretched my knees, massaged my legs, my
shoulder, and then gave special attention to my feet. (My left foot is the most
vulnerable part of my body, where it hurts most often, most painfully.) The idea
is to wake up the muscles and reduce the possibility of injuries. Usually I'd hit
balls for an hour in the warm-up before a big match, but this time, because it was
drizzling, I left it after twenty-five minutes. I started gently, as always, and
gradually increased the pace until I ended up running and hitting with the same
intensity as in a match. I trained with more nerves than usual that morning, but
also with greater concentration. Toni was there and so was Tit�n, and my agent,
Carlos Costa, a former professional tennis player, who was there to warm up
with me. I was more quiet than usual. We all were. No jokes. No smiles. When
we wrapped up, I could tell, just from a glance, that Toni was not too happy, that
he felt I hadn't been hitting the ball as cleanly as I might have. He looked
reproachful--I've known that look all my life--and worried. He was right that I
hadn't been at my sharpest just then, but I knew something that he didn't, and
never could, enormously important as he had been in the whole of my tennis
career: physically I felt in perfect shape, save for a pain on the sole of my left
foot that I'd have to have treated before I went on court, and inside I bore the
single-minded conviction that I had it in me to win. Tennis against a rival with
whom you're evenly matched, or whom you have a chance of beating, is all
about raising your game when it's needed. A champion plays at his best not in
the opening rounds of a tournament but in the semifinals and finals against the
best opponents, and a great tennis champion plays at his best in a Grand Slam
final. I had my fears--I was in a constant battle to contain my nerves--but I
fought them down, and the one thought that occupied my brain was that today
I'd rise to the occasion.
I was physically fit and in good form. I had played very well a month earlier
at the French Open, where I'd beaten Federer in the final, and I'd played some
incredible games here on grass. The two last times we'd met here at Wimbledon
he'd gone in as the favorite. This year I still felt I wasn't the favorite. But there
was a difference. I didn't think that Federer was the favorite to win either. I put
my chances at fifty-fifty.
I also knew that, most probably, the balance of poorly chosen or poorly struck
shots would stand at close to fifty-fifty between us by the time it was all over.
That is in the nature of tennis, especially with two players as familiar with each
other's game as Federer and I are. You might think that after the millions and
millions of balls I've hit, I'd have the basic shots of tennis sown up, that reliably
hitting a true, smooth, clean shot every time would be a piece of cake. But it
isn't. Not just because every day you wake up feeling differently, but because
every shot is different; every single one. From the moment the ball is in motion,
it comes at you at an infinitesimal number of angles and speeds; with more
topspin, or backspin, or flatter, or higher. The differences might be minute,
microscopic, but so are the variations your body makes--shoulders, elbow,
wrists, hips, ankles, knees--in every shot. And there are so many other factors--
the weather, the surface, the rival. No ball arrives the same as another; no shot is
identical. So every time you line up to hit a shot, you have to make a split-
second judgment as to the trajectory and speed of the ball and then make a split-
second decision as to how, how hard, and where you must try and hit the shot
back. And you have to do that over and over, often fifty times in a game, fifteen
times in twenty seconds, in continual bursts more than two, three, four hours,
and all the time you're running hard and your nerves are taut; it's when your
coordination is right and the tempo is smooth that the good sensations come, that
you are better able to manage the biological and mental feat of striking the ball
cleanly in the middle of the racket and aiming it true, at speed and under
immense mental pressure, time after time. And of one thing I have no doubt: the
more you train, the better your feeling. Tennis is, more than most sports, a sport
of the mind; it is the player who has those good sensations on the most days,
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. This
was the goal I had set myself during my three patient years as number two to
Federer, and which I knew I would be very close to reaching if I won this
Wimbledon final.
When the match itself would actually begin was another question. I looked up
and saw patches of blue in the sky. But it was mostly overcast, with thick, dark
clouds glowering on the horizon. The game was due to start in three hours, but
there was every chance it might be delayed or interrupted. I didn't let that worry
me. My mind was going to be clear and focused this time, whatever happened.
No distractions. I was not going to allow any room for a repeat of my failure of
concentration in 2007.
We left Court 17 at about eleven-thirty and went to the locker room, the one at
the All England Club that's reserved for the top seeds. It's not very big, maybe a
quarter of the size of a tennis court. But the tradition of the place is what gives it
its grandeur. The wood panels, the green and purple colors of Wimbledon on the
walls, the carpeted floor, the knowledge that so many greats--Laver, Borg,
McEnroe, Connors, Sampras--have been there. Usually it's busy in there, but
now that there were just the two of us left in the tournament, I was alone.
Federer hadn't showed up yet. I had a shower, changed, and went up a couple of
flights of stairs to have lunch in the players' dining room. Again, it was
unusually quiet, but this suited me. I was withdrawing deeper into myself,
isolating myself from my surroundings, settling into the routines--the inflexible
routines--I have before each match and that continue right up to the start of play.
I ate what I always eat. Pasta--no sauce, nothing that could possibly cause
indigestion--with olive oil and salt, and a straight, simple piece of fish. To
drink: water. Toni and Tit�n were at the table with me. Toni was brooding. But
that's nothing new. Tit�n was placid. He is the person in whose company I spend
the most time and he's always placid. Again, we spoke little. I think Toni might
have grumbled about the weather, but I said nothing. Even when I'm not playing
a tournament, I listen more than I talk.
At one o'clock, with an hour to go before the start of play, we went back down
to the locker room. An unusual thing about tennis is that even in the biggest
tournaments you share a locker room with your opponent. Federer was already
in there, sitting on the wooden bench where he always sits, when I came in after
lunch. Because we're used to it, there was no awkwardness. None that I felt,
anyway. In a little while we were going to do everything we possibly could to
crush each other in the biggest match of the year, but we're friends as well as
rivals. Other rivals in sports might hate each other's guts even when they're not
playing against each other. We don't. We like each other. When the game starts,
or is about to start, we put the friendship to one side. It's nothing personal. I do it
with everybody around me, even my family. I stop being the ordinary me when a
game is on. I try and become a tennis machine, even if the task is ultimately
impossible. I am not a robot; perfection in tennis is impossible, and trying to
scale the peak of your possibilities is where the challenge lies. During a match
you are in a permanent battle to fight back your everyday vulnerabilities, bottle
up your human feelings. The more bottled up they are, the greater your chances
of winning, so long as you've trained as hard as you play and the gap in talent is
not too wide between you and your rival. The gap in talent with Federer existed,
but it was not impossibly wide. It was narrow enough, even on his favorite
surface in the tournament he played best, for me to know that if I silenced the
doubts and fears, and exaggerated hopes, inside my head better than he did, I
could beat him. You have to cage yourself in protective armor, turn yourself into
a bloodless warrior. It's a kind of self-hypnosis, a game you play, with deadly
seriousness, to disguise your own weaknesses from yourself, as well as from
your rival.
To joke or chatter about football with Federer in the locker room, as we might
before an exhibition match, would have been a lie he would have seen through
immediately and interpreted as a sign of fear. Instead, we did each other the
courtesy of being honest. We shook hands, nodded, exchanged the faintest of
smiles, and stepped over to our respective lockers, maybe ten paces away from
each other, and then each pretended the other wasn't there. Not that I really
needed to pretend. I was in that locker room and I wasn't. I was retreating into
some place deep inside my head, my movements increasingly programmed,
automatic.
Forty-five minutes before the game was scheduled to start I took a cold
shower. Freezing cold water. I do this before every match. It's the point before
the point of no return; the first step in the last phase of what I call my pre-game
ritual. Under the cold shower I enter a new space in which I feel my power and
resilience grow. I'm a different man when I emerge. I'm activated. I'm in "the
flow," as sports psychologists describe a state of alert concentration in which the
body moves by pure instinct, like a fish in a current. Nothing else exists but the
battle ahead.
Just as well, because the next thing I had to do was not something that, in
ordinary circumstances, I would accept with calm. I went downstairs to a small
medical room to have my doctor give me a painkilling injection in the sole of my
left foot. I'd had a blister and a swelling around one of the tiny metatarsal bones
down there since the third round. That part of the foot had to be put to sleep,
otherwise I simply couldn't have played--the pain would have been too great.
Then it was up to the locker room again and back to my ritual. I put on my
earphones and listened to music. It sharpens that sense of flow, removes me
further from my surroundings. Then Tit�n bandaged my left foot. While he did
that, I put the grips on my rackets, all six I'd be taking on court. I always do this.
They come with a black pre-grip. I roll a white tape over the black one, spinning
the tape around and around, working diagonally up the shaft. I don't need to
think about it, I just do it. As if in a trance.
Next I lay down on a massage table and Tit�n wrapped a couple of straps of
bandage around my legs, just below the knees. I'd had aches there too, and the
straps helped prevent soreness, or eased the pain if it came.
Playing sports is a good thing for ordinary people; sport played at the
professional level is not good for your health. It pushes your body to limits that
human beings are not naturally equipped to handle. That's why just about every
top professional athlete has been laid low by injury, sometimes a career-ending
injury. There was a moment in my career when I seriously wondered whether I'd
be able to continue competing at the top level. I play through pain much of the
time, but I think all elite sports people do. All except Federer, at any rate. I've
had to push and mold my body to adapt it to cope with the repetitive muscular
stress that tennis forces on you, but he just seems to have been born to play the
game. His physique--his DNA--seems perfectly adapted to tennis, rendering
him immune to the injuries the rest of us are doomed to put up with. They tell
me he doesn't train as hard as I do. I don't know if it's true, but it would figure.
You get these blessed freaks of nature in other sports too. The rest of us just have
to learn to live with pain, and long breaks from the game, because a foot, a
shoulder, or a leg has sent a cry for help to the brain, asking it to stop. That's
why I need to have so much bandaging done before a match; that's why it's such
a critical part of my preparations.
After Tit�n had done my knees, I stood up, got dressed, went to a basin, and
ran water through my hair. Then I put on my bandanna. It's another maneuver
that requires no thought, but I do it slowly, carefully, tying it tightly and very
deliberately behind the back of my head. There's a practical point to it: keeping
my hair from falling over my eyes. But it's also another moment in the ritual,
another decisive moment of no return, like the cold shower, when my sense is
sharpened that very soon I'll be entering battle.
It was nearly time to go on court. The adrenaline rush, creeping up on me all
day, flooded my nervous system. I was breathing hard, bursting to release
energy. But I had to sit still a moment longer as Tit�n bandaged the fingers of my
left hand, my playing hand, his moves as mechanical and silent as mine when I
wrap the grips around my rackets. There's nothing cosmetic about this. Without
the bandages, the skin would stretch and tear during the game.
I stood up and began exercising, violently--activating my explosiveness, as
Tit�n calls it. Toni was on hand, watching me, not saying much. I didn't know
whether Federer was watching me too. I just know he's not as busy as I am in the
locker room before a match. I jumped up and down, ran in short bursts from one
end of the cramped space to the other--no more than six meters or so. I stopped
short, rotated my neck, my shoulders, my wrists, crouched down and bent my
knees. Then more jumps, more mini sprints, as if I were alone in my gym back
home. Always with my earphones on, the music pumping inside my head. I went
to take a pee. (I find myself taking a lot of pees--nervous pees--just before a
game, sometimes five or six in that final hour.) Then I came back, swung my
arms high and round my shoulders, hard.
Toni gestured, I took off the earphones. He said there was a rain delay, but for
no more than fifteen minutes, they thought. I wasn't fazed. I was ready for this.
Rain would have the same effect on Federer as it would on me. No need to be
thrown off balance. I sat down and checked my rackets, felt the balance, the
weight; pulled up my socks, checked that both were exactly the same height on
my calves. Toni leaned close to me. "Don't lose sight of the game plan. Do what
you have to do." I was listening but I was not listening. I know at these moments
what I have to do. I think my concentration is good. My endurance too.
Endurance: that's a big word. Keeping going physically, never letting up, and
putting up with everything that comes my way, not allowing the good or the bad
--the great shots or the weak ones, the good luck or the bad--to put me off
track. I have to be centered, no distractions, do what I have to do in each
moment. If I have to hit the ball twenty times to Federer's backhand, I'll hit it
twenty times, not nineteen. If I have to wait for the rally to stretch to ten shots or
twelve or fifteen to bide my chance to hit a winner, I'll wait. There are moments
when you have a chance to go for a winning drive, but you have a 70 percent
chance of succeeding; you wait five shots more and your odds will have
improved to 85 percent. So be alert, be patient, don't be rash.
If I go up to the net, I hit it to his backhand, not to his drive, his strongest shot.
Losing your concentration means going to the net and hitting the ball to his
forehand, or omitting in a rush of blood to serve to his backhand--always to his
backhand--or going for a winner when it's not time. Being concentrated means
keeping doing what you know you have to do, never changing your plan, unless
the circumstances of a rally or of the game change exceptionally enough to
warrant springing a surprise. It means discipline, it means holding back when the
temptation arises to go for broke. Fighting that temptation means keeping your
impatience or frustration in check.
Even if you see what seems like a chance to put the pressure on and seize the
initiative, keep hitting to the backhand, because in the long run, over the course
of the whole game, that is what's wisest and best. That's the plan. It's not a
complicated plan. You can't even call it a tactic, it's so simple. I play the shot
that's easier for me and he plays the one that's harder for him--I mean, my left-
handed drive against his right-handed backhand. It's just a question of sticking to
it. With Federer what you have to do is keep applying pressure to the backhand,
make him play the ball high, strike with the racket up where his neck is, put him
under pressure, wear him down. Probe chinks that way in his game and his
morale. Frustrate him, drive him close to despair, if you can. And when he is
striking the ball well, as he most surely will, for you won't have him in trouble
the whole time, not by any means, chase down every attempted winner of his, hit
it back deep, make him feel he has to win the point two, three, four times to get
to 15�love.
That's all I was thinking, in so far as you can say I was thinking at all, as I sat
there fiddling with my rackets and socks and the bandages on my fingers, music
filling my head, waiting for the rain to pass. Until an official with a blazer
walked in and told us it was time. I sprang up, swung my shoulders, rolled my
neck from side to side, did a couple more bursts up and down the locker room.
Now I was supposed to hand over my bag to a court attendant for him to carry
it to my chair. It's part of Wimbledon protocol on Final Day. It doesn't happen
anywhere else. I don't like it. It's a break from my routine. I handed over my bag
but took out one racket. I led the way out of the locker room clutching the racket
hard, along corridors with photographs of past champions and trophies behind
glass frames, down some stairs and left and out into the cool English July air and
the magical green of the Centre Court.
I sat down, took off my white track suit top, and took a sip from a bottle of
water. Then from a second bottle. I repeat the sequence, every time, before a
match begins, and at every break between games, until a match is over. A sip
from one bottle, and then from another. And then I put the two bottles down at
my feet, in front of my chair to my left, one neatly behind the other, diagonally
aimed at the court. Some call it superstition, but it's not. If it were superstition,
why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose? It's
a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order
I seek in my head.
Federer and the umpire were standing at the foot of the umpire's chair, waiting
for the coin toss. I leapt up, stood across the net from Federer, and began to run
in place, to jump energetically up and down. Federer stood still, always so much
more relaxed than me, in appearance anyway.
The last part of the ritual, as important as all the preparations that went before,
was to look up, scan the perimeter of the stadium, and search for my family
members among the blur of the Centre Court crowd, locking their exact
coordinates inside my head. At the other end of the court to my left, are my
father and mother and my uncle Toni; and diagonally across from them, behind
my right shoulder, my sister, three of my grandparents and my godfather and
godmother, who are also my uncle and aunt, plus another uncle. I don't let them
intrude on my thoughts during a match--I don't ever let myself smile during a
match--but knowing they are there, as they always have been, gives me the
peace of mind on which my success as a player rests. I build a wall around
myself when I play, but my family is the cement that holds the wall together.
I also looked in the crowd for the members of my team, the professionals I
employ. Sitting alongside my parents and Toni, Carlos Costa, my agent and great
friend, was there; and Benito P�rez Barbadillo, my press chief; and Jordi Robert
--I call him "Tuts"--who is my handler at Nike; and Tit�n, who knows me most
intimately of all and is like a brother to me. I could also see, in my mind's eye,
my paternal grandfather and my girfriend, Mar�a Francisca, whom I call Mary,
watching me on television back home in Manacor, and the two other members of
my team who were also absent, but not for that any less critical to my success:
Francis Roig, my second coach, as clever a tennis man as Toni, but more
easygoing, and my smart, intense physical trainer Joan Forcades who, like Tit�n,
ministers as much to my mind as he does to my body.
My immediate family, my extended family, and my professional team (all of
whom are practically family themselves) stand in three concentric rings around
me. Not only do they cocoon me from the dangerously distracting hurly-burly
that comes with money and fame, together they create the environment of
affection and trust I need to allow my talent to flower. Each individual member
of the group complements the other; each plays his or her role in fortifying me
where I am weak, boosting me where I am strong. To imagine my good fortune
and success in their absence is to imagine the impossible.
Roger won the toss. He chose to serve. I didn't mind. I like my rival to start
serving at the beginning of a match. If my head is strong, if his nerves are getting
to him, I know I have a good chance of breaking him. I thrive on the pressure. I
don't buckle; I grow stronger on it. The closer to the precipice I am, the more
elated I feel. Of course I feel nerves, and of course the adrenaline and the blood
are pumping so hard I can feel them from my temples to my legs. It's an extreme
state of physical alertness, but conquerable. I did conquer it. The adrenaline beat
the nerves. My legs didn't give way. They felt strong, ready to run all day. I was
bristling. I was locked away in my solitary tennis world but I'd never felt more
alive.
We took our positions on the baselines and started warming up. That echoing
silence again: clack, clack; clack, clack. Somewhere in my mind I took note, not
for the first time, of just how fluent and easy Roger was in his movements; how
poised. I'm more of a scrapper. More defensive, scrambling, recovering, on the
brink. I know that's my image; I've watched myself often enough on videos.
And it's a fair reflection of how I've played most of my career--especially when
Federer has been my rival. But the good sensations remained. My preparations
had worked well. The emotions that would assail and overwhelm me if I hadn't
performed my ritual, if I hadn't systematically willed myself into shedding the
stage fright the Centre Court would ordinarily induce, were under control, if not
altogether gone. The wall I'd built around myself stood solid and tall. I'd
achieved the right balance between tension and control, between nerves and the
conviction I could win. And I was striking the ball hard and true: the ground
strokes, the volleys, the smashes, and then the serves with which we wrapped up
the sparring session before the real battle began. I went back to my chair,
toweled my arms, my face, sipped from each of my two bottles of water. I had a
flashback to this stage in last year's final, just before play started. I said to
myself one more time that I was ready to accept whatever problems came my
way and that I would overcome them. Because winning this match was the
dream of my life and I'd never been closer to reaching it and I might not have
another chance again. Something else might fail me, my knee or my foot, my
backhand or my serve, but my head would not. I might feel fear, the nerves
might get the better of me at some point, but over the long haul my head, this
time, was not going to let me down.
"Clark Kent and Superman"
The Rafa Nadal the world saw as he stormed onto the Centre Court lawn for the
start of the 2008 Wimbledon final was a warrior, eyes glazed in murderous
concentration, clutching his racket like a Viking his axe. A glance at Federer
revealed a striking contrast in styles: the younger player in sleeveless shirt and
pirate's pantaloons, the older one in a cream, gold-embossed cardigan and
classic Fred Perry shirt; one playing the part of the street-fighting underdog, the
other suave and effortlessly superior.
If Nadal, veined biceps bulging, was a picture of elemental brute force,
Federer--lean and lithe, five years older at twenty-seven--was all natural grace.
If Nadal, who had just turned twenty-two, was the head-down assassin, Federer
was the aristocrat who strolled on court waving airily to the multitudes as if he
owned Wimbledon, as if he were welcoming guests to a private garden party.
Federer's absentminded, almost supercilious demeanor during the pre-match
warm-up hardly hinted at the game's billing as a clash of titans; Nadal's
thunderous intensity was a grunting caricature of a PlayStation action hero.
Nadal hits his forehands as if he were firing a rifle. He cocks an imaginary gun,
eyes the target, and pulls the trigger. With Federer--whose name means "trader
in feathers" in old German--there is no sense of pause, no visible mechanism.
He is all unforced liquidity. Nadal (the name means "Christmas" in Catalan or
Mallorcan, a word with altogether more exuberant associations than "feather
trader"), was the super fit, self-built sportsman of the modern era; Federer
belonged to a type one might have seen in the 1920s, when tennis was an upper-
crust pastime, a gentlemen's spirited exercise following afternoon tea.
That was what the world saw. What Federer saw was a snarling young
pretender who threatened to usurp his tennis kingdom, stop his quest for a record
of six consecutive Wimbledon victories, and displace him from the position he
had held for four years as world number one. The effect Nadal had on Federer in
the locker room before the match began had to be intimidating, otherwise, in the
view of Francis Roig, Nadal's second coach, "Federer would have had to be
made of stone."
"It's the moment he gets up from the massage table, after Maym� has finished
putting on his bandages, that he becomes scary for his rivals," says Roig, himself
a former tennis professional. "The simple action of wrapping on his bandanna is
so frighteningly intense; his eyes, far away, seem to see nothing that's around
him. Then, suddenly, he'll breathe deep and kick into life, pumping his legs up
and down and then, as if oblivious to the fact that his rival is just a few paces
away across the room, he'll let out a cry of `Vamos! Vamos!' [`Let's go! Let's
go!']. There's something animal about it. The other player may be thinking his
own thoughts but he won't be able to help casting him a wary sideways glance--
I've seen it again and again--and he'll be thinking, `Oh, my God! This is Nadal,
who fights for every point as if it were his last. Today I'm going to have to be at
the very top of my game, I'm going to have to have the day of my life. And not
to win, just to have a chance.' "
The performance is all the more dramatic in Roig's eyes for the chasm that
separates Nadal the competitor "with that extra something real champions have"
from Nadal the private man. "You know that a part of him is wracked by nerves,
you know that in everyday life he is an ordinary guy--an unfailingly decent and
nice guy--who can be unsure of himself and full of anxieties, but you see him
there in the locker room and suddenly he is transforming himself before your
very eyes into a conqueror."
But the Rafael his family saw emerge from the locker room onto the Centre
Court was neither a conqueror nor an axe-wielding gladiator, nor a fighting bull.
They were terrified for him. They knew he was brilliant and they knew he was
brave and, while they would never let on, they were a little in awe of him, but
what they were seeing now, as the contest was about to begin, was something
altogether more humanly fragile.
Rafael Maym� is Nadal's shadow, his most intimate companion on the
grindingly long global tennis circuit. Trim, neat, towered over by his six-foot-
one friend and employer, the thirty-three-year-old Maym� is a discreet, shrewd,
serene Mallorcan from Nadal's hometown of Manacor. Since he started working
as Nadal's physical therapist in September 2006, the two have developed a
relationship that is practically telepathic. They barely need to talk to understand
each other, but Maym�--or Tit�n, as Nadal affectionately calls him, though the
nickname has no meaning--has learned to tell when the mood is ripe for him to
speak up, when to lend an ear. His role is not unlike that of a groom with a
purebred racehorse. He rubs Nadal's muscles, tapes his joints, soothes his
electric temperament. Maym� is Nadal's horse whisperer.
Maym� attends to Nadal's needs of the moment, psychological as well as
physical, but he knows his limitations: he sees that these end where the family
begins, for they are the pillar that sustains Nadal, as a person and as an athlete.
"You cannot stress too much the significance of the family on his life," Maym�
says. "Or how united he and they are. Each of Rafa's triumphs is indivisibly a
triumph of the whole family. The parents, the sister, the uncles, the aunt, the
grandparents: they act on the principle of one for all and all for one. They savor
his victories and suffer his defeats. They are like a part of his body, as if they
were an extension of Rafa's arm."
So many of them show up so often at Nadal's matches, Maym� says, because
they understand he is not 100 percent fully functional without them. "It's not a
duty. They need to be there. They see no choice in the matter. But they also feel
that his chances of success will increase if, when he looks up at the crowds
before a match begins, he sees them there. That is why when he wins a big
victory, his instinct is to jump up into the stands to embrace them; or if any are
back home watching on TV, the first thing he does back in the locker room is
phone them."
His father, Sebasti�n Nadal, endured the most nerve-shredding experience of
his life at the Centre Court on the day of the 2008 Wimbledon final. An image of
what happened after the 2007 final, also against Federer, gnawed at Sebasti�n, as
it did at the rest of the Nadal family. They all knew how Rafael had reacted after
that five-set loss. Sebasti�n had described to them the scene in the Wimbledon
locker room: Rafael sitting on the floor of the shower for half an hour, a picture
of despair, the water that pounded his head blending with the tears that rolled
down his cheeks.
"I was so afraid of another defeat--not for me, but for Rafael," said Sebasti�n,
a big man who in his working life is a steady, calm entrepreneur. "I had that
picture of him destroyed, utterly sunk, after the 2007 final, nailed inside my head
and I did not want to have to see it again. And I thought, if he loses, what can I
do--what can I possibly do--to make it less traumatic for him? That was the
game of Rafael's life; that was the biggest day. I had a terrible time. I've never
suffered so much."
All those closest to Nadal shared Sebasti�n's suffering that day; all saw the
soft, vulnerable core hidden beneath the hard warrior shell.
Nadal's sister, Maribel, a lanky and good-humored college student, five years
younger than he, is amused by the gap between the perception the public has of
her brother and her own knowledge of him. An unusually overprotective big
brother, who calls her or texts ten times a day, wherever in the world he might
be, he gets into a terrible flap, she says, at the slightest suggestion that she might
be falling ill. "One time when he was way in Australia my doctor ordered me to
have some tests done--nothing too serious--but in all the messages I exchanged
with Rafael that was the one thing I didn't mention. It would freak him out; it
would risk throwing him completely off his game," says Maribel, whose pride in
her brother's achievements does not blind her to "the truth," expressed with
teasing affection, that he is "a bit of a scaredy cat."
Nadal's mother, Ana Mar�a Parera, does not disagree. "He's on top in the
tennis world but, deep down, he is a super-sensitive human being full of fears
and insecurities that people who don't know him would scarcely imagine," she
says. "He doesn't like the dark, for example, and he prefers to sleep with the
light, or the TV, on. He is not comfortable with thunder and lightning either.
When he was a child he'd hide under a cushion when that happened and, even
now, when there's a storm and you need to go outside to fetch something, he
won't let you. And then there are his eating habits, his loathing of cheese and
tomato, and of ham, the national dish of Spain. I'm not as mad about ham myself
as most people seem to be, but cheese? It is a bit peculiar."
A fussy eater, he is also fussy behind the wheel of a car. Nadal enjoys driving,
but maybe more in the make-believe world of his PlayStation, a constant
companion when he is on tour, than in a real car. "He's a prudent driver," his
mother says. "He accelerates, brakes, accelerates, brakes, and he is awfully
careful about overtaking, however powerful his car might be."
Maribel, his sister, is more blunt than his mother. She describes Rafael as "a
terrible driver." And she finds it funny too that, while loving the sea, he is also
afraid of it. "He's always talking about buying himself a boat. He loves fishing
and Jet Skiing, but he won't Jet Ski, nor will he swim, unless he can see the sand
at the bottom. Nor will he ever dive off a high rock into the sea, as his friends do
all the time."
But all these foibles are nothing compared to his most persistent anxiety: that
something bad may happen to his family. Not only does he panic at the merest
suggestion of ill health in the family, he is forever fretting that an accident may
befall them. "I like to light up the fireplace almost every night," says his mother,
at whose large, modern seafront home he still lives, in a wing of the house with
its own bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom. "If he goes out, he'll remind me
before leaving to put out the fire before I go to sleep. And then he'll phone three
times from whatever restaurant or bar he is in to make sure I've done so. If I take
the car to drive to Palma, only an hour away, he'll beg me, always, to drive
slowly and carefully."
Ana Mar�a, a wise and strong Mediterranean matriarch, never ceases to be
amazed by the incoherence between how brave he is on the tennis court and how
fear-ridden off it. "He is a straightforward kind of person, at first sight," she
says, "and also a very good person, but he is also full of ambiguities. If you
know what he is like deep down, there are things about him that don't quite
square."
That is why he has to arm himself with courage in the buildup to a big game,
why he does what he does inside the locker room, willing himself into a
personality change, bottling up his inherent fears and the nerves of the moment
before releasing the gladiator within.
To the anonymous multitudes the man who emerged from the locker room
onto the Centre Court for the start of the Wimbledon 2008 final was Superman;
to his intimates, he was also Clark Kent. One was quite as real as the other; it
might even be that one depended on the other. Benito P�rez Barbadillo, his press
chief since December 2006, is as convinced that Nadal's insecurities are the fuel
of his competitive fire as he is that his family offers him the core of affection and
support necessary to keep them in check. P�rez worked in the tennis world for
ten years, as an official at the Association of Tennis Professionals before
becoming Nadal's press chief, and has known, in some cases very well, most of
the top players of this period. Nadal, he believes, is different from the rest, as a
---
[Cuối tài liệu]
2009
Australian Open champion
2010
French Open champion
Wimbledon champion
US Open champion, completed Career Grand Slam
2011
French Open champion: Tenth Grand Slam title, age 25
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I'd like to thank John Carlin, who made the experience of working on this
book a pleasure and an honor. Writing a book with a journalist and author of
John's caliber was in itself a great experience. But getting to know John as we
worked together and traveled to tournaments in Doha and Australia ensured we
became not only collaborators on a project, but friends as well.
Of course, this book would not have been possible without the support of
many people. All my love and gratitude to my parents, my sister, my
grandparents, my uncles and aunt, and to Mar�a Francisca. A big thanks also to
my team and close friends: Carlos, Tit�n, Joan Forcades, Benito, Tuts, Francis,
�ngel Ruiz Cotorro, Carlos Moy�, Tom�u Salva, M. A. Munar.
And a very special thank you to my uncle, coach, and friend, Toni Nadal.
--RAFAEL NADAL
First I must thank Luis Vi�uales, the great coordinator, whose brainchild this
book is, as well as Larry Kirshbaum, who got the ball rolling. Also much thanks
to my editor at Hyperion, Jill Schwartzman, who has displayed admirable
patience and fortitude.
Special thanks to my agent, who is much more than an agent, Anne Edelstein;
and to her assistant--far more than the title suggests--Krista Ingebretson. And a
big thanks to Arantxa Martinez, whose hard toil and advice and good humor
have helped a lot.
Otherwise, it has been an enormous pleasure to work on this book with Rafa
Nadal, his family, his team, and his friends, every one of whom has been helpful,
considerate, and kind.
--JOHN CARLIN
About the Authors
Rafael Nadal was born in 1986 in Mallorca, Spain. He has won a total of nine
Grand Slam titles and career "Golden Slam"--all four majors plus a gold medal
at the 2008 Olympics. He continues to live in Mallorca, believing he will never
leave.
www.rafaelnadal.com
John Carlin, originally from the UK, is currently a Senior International writer
for El Pais, the world's leading Spanish-language newspaper. He wrote the book
that became the feature film Invictus.
Copyright
Copyright � 2011 Rafael Nadal and John Carlin
Except as noted otherwise, photo credits are as follows:
Photo insert 1: Courtesy of Rafael Nadal
Photo insert 2: � Miguel Angel Zubiarrain
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or
retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion,
114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:
Nadal, Rafael.
Rafa / by Rafael Nadal and John Carlin
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4013-2451-3 (hardback)
1. Nadal, Rafael. 2. Tennis players--Spain--Biography. I. Carlin, John. II. Title.
GV994.N33A3 2011
796.342092--dc23
[B]
2011020769
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