Short read: Rafael Nadal may have been the Spanish ‘warrior’ but he evolved into a gentle giant of the game

Tennis has always had great rivalries but none greater than the one between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Yet the intensity of the rivalry on court contrasted with the bonhomie outside with utmost respect for each other. With Nadal following Federer into retirement as he played the Davis Cup earlier this week, the best tribute had to come from Federer himself (you can read it here ). But Nadal demonstrated the competitiveness on court and gentle humility off it in even greater contrast. Namit Kumar brings out these contradictions about Nadal in this piece for the Indian Express:

“The many attributes that have endured him to the public – grit and determination, courage and resilience, humility and modesty – are not as single-minded as they seem.

The famed humility that Nadal showed was a true manifestation of his own self-belief. Nadal knew he could extract more from his talent and achieve even greater heights than his already celestial success. True confidence is also born out of doubt.

The bravery, and obsessive fight, were also a manifestation of his fears, of not being able to play and win for as long as he desired, and a certain desperation, to hold on to his peak level of performance and success for as long as he possibly could.

The physical resilience was a product of his own fragility. The central, most impactful injury of Nadal’s career was the diagnosis of his chronic foot issue, which flared up before he even won his first Major. In a way, he has always played in pain because it is the only way he has known how.

The famous relentless fighter, who won the French Open in 2022 by taking pain-numbing injections for his foot, is, as he reveals in his autobiography, afraid of the dark, and of dogs.

For all the bravado and hypermasculinity that he allegedly elicits on the court, Nadal is infamously timid in front of a microphone or at public appearances, to the point that it has become something of a joke for tennis insiders. Even more so when he has been made to speak in English – Nadal seemingly has no designs to be a multilingual resident of the world; tennis has always been the thing, his thing. No wonder he has been desperate to draw this out for as long as he can.”

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