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Journalism of Courage
It is hard to argue that there has been a greater sporting achievement to come out of tennis – in terms of size, longevity, or fame – than Rafael Nadal’s record at the French Open.
Fourteen Roland Garros titles, a win-loss record of 112-4 (96.55%) and a statue that now patrols those courts. The list of achievements, as astounding as it may be, only tells a small part of the story of how Nadal changed perceptions about playing on the red stuff; how he added glamour and a heightened sense of history every time he stepped on the surface that had long been dismissed as the working-class athlete’s version of the finesse-fuelled, largely aristocratic game played on the grass at tennis’s holy grail of Wimbledon.
However, as Nadal announced on Thursday that he is set to retire from professional tennis after the Davis Cup finals next month — following two years of awkward toil to return to the elite level — the urge to pigeonhole the Spaniard’s legacy as merely the greatest clay-courter ever would be a disservice to one of the few universally-acknowledged sporting greats to emerge from the game.
In Open Era men’s tennis history, only five players have won more than 8 Grand Slam titles, the number that Nadal won outside of clay. Novak Djokovic is the only player who has matched, and surpassed, Nadal for all-court greatness. The two of them have won at least two titles at each of the four Majors (Djokovic has won three).
His two greatest match wins – the rain-curtailed five-set triumph to dethrone Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2008 (dubbed by some as the greatest tennis match ever), and the come-from-behind victory to win the Australian Open shortly after his injury comeback in 2022 – both came away from clay.
In the two-year, injury-induced lull of his career in 2015 and 2016, Nadal returned a changed player. The era of surface homogeneity – when tennis weapons became similarly effective throughout the bloated calendar, across all surfaces – had been ushered in by Nadal, alongside Djokovic and Andy Murray, and their aggressive baseline style. But to truly excel across the board, and contend with the myriad injuries he had faced, Nadal needed subtle variations and improvements that came about after a coaching change when he hired Carlos Moya.
From the start of 2017, Nadal was an accomplished volleyer, showing the aggression and variation required to end points early against elite defenders, with a vastly-improved second serve. The results were there, not just at the French Open, but everywhere. He won several hard court titles, including two US Opens and an Australian Open, subsequently, and played his part in many epics against different generations of players.
Just as it is impossible to take stock of Nadal’s legacy without highlighting his success on clay, one cannot do so without acknowledging he did so in the toughest era to win Majors, sandwiched between the contrasting styles of two of the greatest players, both of whom count him as their greatest rival.
It was the genius of Federer that allowed him to arrive in the middle of an era dominated by power baseliners and carve out a nearly-unplayable all-court offensive style. Nadal, with his athleticism and unique shotmaking, found the antidote from within the power baseline game itself. When the younger, more cerebral Djokovic arrived onto the scene, for long, Nadal found the smarts to improve from his one-dimensional game to prove to be his equal.
Together, the triumvirate’s cross-rivalry lent a higher profile to the sport. Not only would their match-ups be rich in narrative, but also elevate and evolve the technical and physical limits of the sport. Federer exits the stage as the most universally adored, Djokovic has now established himself as the greatest thanks to his longevity and consistency.
In truth, Nadal spent a short-lived period atop the heap. He arrived in the shadow of the legend of Federer, and just as he remarkably broke through, got eclipsed by the younger challenger Djokovic. But had it not been for the feral intensity he added to the trio’s match-ups, the epics they repeatedly played out on the grand stage would not have reached the scale that some sporting events do when they trigger a truly unique level of high drama and emotion.
For Nadal to emerge from this era as merely the clay GOAT would be reductive; after having altered his style to adjust to the limitations of his battered body, and carving a body of work that consists of 22 Majors no less.
For, the part he played in the tri-valry, the fight and effort he put in till the last point to heighten the stature of events, the sustained success he enjoyed on hard courts and grass, and the perceptions he changed about tennis, must all be counted alongside his clay greatness when charting his true legacy.
