Rafael Nadal and the animal within
Rafael Nadal says he doesn’t expect much from his comeback. Don’t believe it. Some people just have to win and the Spaniard is one of them.
You’ve heard umpteen yarns about Rafael Nadal running through hotel corridors on tour, screaming vamos, hands in the air, laughing like a madman, pumping his fists, shirt over his head, aeroplane arms, doing the lawnmower, knocking over the room-service trolleys, celebrating like he’s won another French Open … because he’s scored a goal at soccer on his PlayStation.
His mates at Majorca tell similar tales. They reckon he holes a putt to beat them in a round of social golf, roars in manic delight as if Seve Ballesteros has won another US Masters and then unapologetically takes their 20 bucks off ‘em.
Point being, Nadal is a competitive bugger. You know those people? They put down great Scrabble words like quixotic, chutzpah or whizzbang – triple word score! – and launch a fist to the sky. They hit a forehand at ping pong that nicks the edge of the table and rather than apologising for being such tinny bastards, they yelp the English equivalent of vamos. They go rock when you’ve gone scissors – should have gone paper! – and they scream in their absurd glee, rock beats scissors! Rock beats scissors! They do the motion of their rock crushing your scissors, just to prove their point. You know those people? They. Just. Love. To. Win.
Nadal is more than a competitive bugger. He’s an animal. When he says he’s not too fussed about the result against ex-US Open champion Dominic Thiem in his impossibly appealing comeback at the Brisbane International on Tuesday, don’t be so sure. Nadal is being truthful before the match, and he will be truthful after it, and his tempered expectations are legitimate because he hasn’t had a hit of singles in nearly a year. But he won’t be able to help himself. In the heat of battle, he’ll fight as furiously as he does at Melbourne Park or PlayStation. It’s all one and the same for the people who just love to win.
Nadal versus Thiem. Is this a typo? A coupla major champions on Pat Rafter Arena. Twenty-three slams between them. OK, Thiem has contributed only one to the tally, but he’s a heck of a player. Well, he used to be. His story is nearly as compelling as Nadal’s. He won the 2020 US Open, rose to number three in the world but was wiped off the tour for nine months by a severe wrist injury. A thunderous ball-striker at his best, he’s barely hit one off the middle for a year-and-a-half and had to slog his way through qualifying in Brisbane. Now a World No. 98 with the yips faces a World No. 672 with dodgy hips. It’s a whizzbang, quixotic fixture. Expect chutzpah.
And expect a decent outing from Nadal, according to the Brisbane International’s top seed, the young tyro Holger Rune, the 20-year-old Danish World No. 8 who’s been flogging balls with Nadal on Brisbane’s practice courts. Rune is an intense sort of character but he was taken aback with the level of gusto Nadal brought to their sessions.
“The intensity he brings is incredible,” Rune said. “I’ve been playing a very intense pre-season and I had a very intense end-of-season but that was probably the hardest practice I’ve had the last half-year. We were hitting and he was hitting strong. Then we started points and I thought he was moving very well. I thought he played unbelievable.”
Nadal’s training drills are a sight. He throws himself rallies like it’s forever five-all in the fifth. There was a classic contrast of personalities and routines before the 2017 Australian Open final. On a warm Sunday arvo at Melbourne Park. Nadal was on a back court, sweating bullets, throwing every sinew at every ball, muscles straining, energy draining, working his backside off. Meanwhile, his foe, Roger Federer, had his feet up in the player cafeteria, sipping on a coffee while chatting away with Rod Laver. Relaxed enough to do a James Bond and request one medium dry vodka martini, shaken, not stirred. Federer won in five.
Thiem’s class is shown by the 6-9 win-loss against Nadal. Half-a-dozen victories over arguably the greatest of all time means you can play a bit. Or, you used to be able to. The 30-year-old’s struggles bring to mind Ian Baker-Finch’s trials and tribulations. Thiem, in his prime, had a laser-like quality. Balls went like bullets and bullseyed their targets. Watching him spray balls long, short, wide, into the net and into the second row in recent times is akin to witnessing Baker-Finch, the 1991 British Open champion, coughing up 92 a few years later at Royal Troon.
“There’s a reason for it and that reason is a technical flaw leading to poor results and loss of confidence,” Baker-Finch once said. “Often you can play well in practice but you need to be bullet proof to play at the highest level. If you’re timid, it’s impossible to compete. A flaw in the swing makes you timid.”
That was Thiem in his prime. Bulletproof. That’s Thiem recently. Timid. He trains at the level of a US Open champion then plays like he’s toughing out a match tie-breaker in the third round of a B-grade club championship in which players wear bucket hats and need to borrow a racket if they break a string. Hope for Thiem springs eternal, which is longer than the soon-to-be-retired Nadal has. Hope has one year to go.
I reckon he’ll pull the pin at the Paris Olympics. Carry the Spanish flag, play a few three-setters in singles, give the doubles a shake and then say adios. He actually looked in decent nick in a first-round doubles defeat to Australians Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson in Brisbane. Hit the ball cleanly, better than your average World No. 672, and moved well. Then again, it was only doubles. Skilful and entertaining yet hardly a rugged physical examination.
Nadal versus Thiem. Not a typo. They’ve played two French Open finals. Nadal won both as if rock was crushing paper. They played a marathon five-set bellringer of a quarter-final at the 2018 US Open. Thiem won the first set 6-0 before Nadal clawed back like an animal, or like he was back on his PlayStation, all one and the same, screaming vamos, hands in the air, laughing like a madman, pumping his fists, shirt over his head, aeroplane arms, doing the lawnmower.
Prediction? Absolute unpredictability. “I can’t have super long-term goals because I don’t see myself playing a super-long time,” Nadal says. “I don’t know how things are going to keep going. I’m not a player who tries to predict what can happen. I need to accept the adversity and that it’s not going to be perfect. Just come with the right spirit every day.”
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