Secret to Rafael Nadal’s sustained success

Who would bet against Rafael Nadal hunting down Roger Federer’s grand slam record?

Rafael Nadal after winning his 10th French Open title

There is a line in Rafael Nadal’s autobiography that provides an eloquent insight into the inner game of tennis. “During a match, you are in a permanent battle to fight back your everyday vulnerabilities,” he writes. “You have to cage yourself in protective armour, turn yourself into a bloodless warrior. It’s a kind of self-hypnosis, a game you play, with deadly seriousness ... ”

He was talking about sustaining focus during a grand slam final, but could not the words just as easily have applied to sustaining focus beyond the white lines? When you reach the pinnacle two days after turning 19, as Nadal did by winning the French Open at the first attempt in 2005, the temptations are legion. Fame, glory, hangers-on, the celebrity circuit, glamour and, perhaps most fatal of all, complacency. Wouldn’t any mortal require “protective armour” to shield himself from all this?

We often talk about the resilience required to attain sporting greatness. We talk about the ambition, resolve and passion. But is there not in addition to these inspirational qualities, the more mundane art of self-management? The ability to handle the vicissitudes of life? Nadal has won grand slam titles spanning 12 years and, given his power and consistency against Stan Wawrinka in a devastating final last weekend, who would bet against him winning more?

His family have ensured that he has remained grounded, to be sure (perhaps the most protective armour of all), not least Uncle Toni, his former coach, but has he not also kept himself grounded? Even in the teeth of injury and serial adversity he kept his mind focused on the future, resisting the temptations and delusions of the “now”; a “bloodless warrior” off the court as much as on it. Isn’t that the way that any athlete makes the transition from mere promise to the rarefied terrain of greatness?

I remember asking Cristiano Ronaldo during an interview in Madrid how he had managed to stay at the top for so long. How he had scored 30 goals in four consecutive league seasons (it extended to six). How he had won multiple league titles, European Cups, and Ballons d’Or. His ­answer focused not on his activity on the field, but off it. “Discipline and dedication,” he said simply, before talking about stretching in the early mornings, abdominal work in the afternoons and a life of almost monastic dedication.

It is perhaps unfair to compare Wayne Rooney to his former teammate. After all, how many footballers can measure up to a phenomenon such as Ronaldo? But think back to how the England striker exploded into our consciousness during the European Championship finals of 2004; think back to that mesmerising synthesis of guile, combativeness and drive that took England to the quarter-finals before injury derailed him. It seemed as though a giant of the game had arrived.

There have been times in recent years when Rooney lived up to that early promise, dominating matches with the same authority as Ronaldo. But even his most fervent admirers would admit that he failed to sustain it. The problem was not one of ability or passion but of self-management. How often did Alex Ferguson look askance when his key striker returned to Old Trafford after the summer carrying excess flab?

One thinks of Rory McIlroy, too, a golfer who seemed to inhabit a category of one when he subdued the Congressional, in Maryland in 2011, winning the US Open by eight strokes and setting a record low score for the competition of 268. There were moments, particularly during the opening two rounds, when commentators wondered if anyone had struck the ball with greater authority and panache. Since then, the Northern Irishman has won “only” three major titles in 22 attempts, a return that most players would covet, but McIlroy will rue.

In his case, the distraction was not booze or celebrity status but the ironies of big money. Who could forget the launch of his sponsorship with Nike in Abu Dhabi in 2013, all glitz and glamour and talk of global corporate domination. For a while, McIlroy came to believe that he was a “brand” rather than a golfer, listening too closely to the money men, talking about himself in the third person, and losing, if only subtly, the fun, the bounce and joy of golf that had been so central to his virtuosity.

When I look at Nadal and, indeed, Roger Federer, I am struck by their ambition, skill and technical prowess. But I am also conscious of their masterly exploitation of their own talent. They exist in that rare psychological habitat where singular moments of brilliance are not enough. They are not interested in fleeting peaks or temporary flashes. They are projecting forward to the next summit even as they bask in the acclaim of the last. They coexist in the present and the future.

Lionel Messi has won 29 trophies with Barcelona, including eight La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues. He has scored 40-plus goals for eight straight seasons. Andres Iniesta, his teammate, has enjoyed similar success at Barcelona as well as winning two European Championships and one World Cup. Both have off days (some might argue that Messi has yet to perform to his fullest for his country), but few would deny that they, too, are masters of self-management.

In the famous marshmallow test, children were given a chance to eat one marshmallow now or delay gratification for a few minutes and have two instead. When these youngsters were tracked down years later, psychologists were astonished to find that the test predicted a huge range of outcomes. “Pre-schoolers who delayed longer were rated ... as adolescents who exhibited more self-control, yielded less to temptation, were less distractible,” the lead researcher said. “When the SAT scores of children with the shortest delay times were compared with those with longer delay times, the overall difference was 210 points.”

This experiment revealed, above all else, that some are inclined to compromise the future because of their intoxication with the present. They have what economists call a high discount rate. The likes of Ronaldo and Iniesta succumb to no such temptation because they implicitly understand that greatness is as much about tomorrow as it is about today. I don’t doubt that Nadal is already focused on his tilt at Wimbledon, at Flushing Meadows; already steeling himself for the sacrifices necessary to overhaul Federer’s record of 18 grand slams.

The Spaniard is a masterof ­tennis, in part, because he is the master of himself.

The Times