A new biography of Rafael Nadal focuses on the tennis star's domination on clay
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Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. When you watch tennis on TV, there's no timer on the display like there are in other sports. Time takes a backseat compared to basketball or football. And yet in today's book about one of the greatest tennis players of all time, there's a lot of talk about managing time.

The book is The Warrior, Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay. It's a biography of Rafael Nadal, one of the most famous tennis players, written by Christopher Clary, who used to be a tennis correspondent at the New York Times. And Clary tells here now Scott Tong about how everything from Nadal's tics to his choice of terrain came down to controlling time. That's ahead.

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Last year, tennis superstar and legend Rafael Nadal retired after a remarkable, record-breaking career. Titles, the numbers, people probably know that. But the way that I would like to be remembered more is like a good person from a small village in Mallorca that...

That audio was courtesy of the Tennis Channel. Rafa, as he's known, won every major championship during rivalries with two others whose accomplishments are also stunning and may never be equaled, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. For his part, Nadal was almost unbeatable on the clay courts of the French Open. He won it a record 14 times. Think about that. And his record at the French was a ridiculous 112 wins, 4 losses.

There's a new book on his life, The Warrior, Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay. The author is former longtime New York Times tennis correspondent Christopher Clary. He's also written a biography of Federer. And Christopher joins us in studio. Hey, good to see you. Scott, good to be here. Good to see that book on the table there. It is the red color of the red clay of the French Open, which we're going to talk about. You know, one thing that surprised me reading this is that it's a book about the history of the world.

Is Nadal's confidence, right? Some elite athletes go in thinking mentally, I'm the best in the world and that's how I'm going to perform at my best. Nadal, not so much. Yeah, Jim Currier, you know, the great commentator and was number one in the world. He says Nadal runs on doubt. And I think that's a good way to put it. I think Nadal needs that. And that's sort of the way he was raised by his uncle Tony, who was his mentor in tennis before.

And the reason he plays tennis instead of soccer. And in your interviews with Nadal, did you sense that yourself? Yeah, it's interesting, Scott. There's a contrarian spirit in the Nadal family. If you tell Rafa, oh, you got this match in the bag. There's no question. You got to be the favorite. You've won, you know, 12, 13 French Opens by now. You're going to win again, right? He will respond to you arguing against your point. But if you ever tell him he doesn't have a chance...

which was sometimes the case in some of the early years on grass, things like that, then the reaction is also a little bit, I guess, defensive in a different way. So there's a little bit of that contrarian dinner table spirit if Nadal is like that. I want to play a cut of audio from Nadal in an interview with Andy Roddick, the retired American tennis star, of course. This is about the Olympics last year in Paris. Nadal learned last minute as he tells the story that he was going to carry the torch in front of the world and it's going to be passed to him by Zidane, the French soccer legend.

And he kind of freaked out. Let's take a listen. When I realized the moment, I started to cry a little bit before. And when I started to cry, I said...

Shut up, man. Stop it. It's not the moment to cry. It's the moment to enjoy. So I say, okay, try to not be too emotional. Just enjoy the moment. So I say, okay, let's go out. Let's do the thing. And yeah, let's have fun. Did he always have that side of humanity in his life? He's got a real sensitive side to him for sure. And I think a lot of the rituals and things that he does, Scott, through his career are meant to control a lot of those emotions and things that go on. And that is very touching because it's also...

Just to have that moment there in Paris, I think he felt all of that. And then Zidane, because Rafa, if he loves anything more than clay court tennis, it's Real Madrid. But yeah, I think there is a fragility to Nadal, despite the sort of monstrous way that he can dominate a tennis match. Monstrous biceps, come on. Yeah, exactly. But I think honestly over time, and that's the great thing about tennis, Scott, is that people get to know these guys on such an intimate level and they have their strong opinions from watching him for 20 years. And I think you could sense, despite the amazing ability that Nadal has,

There is this underlying fragility and sort of sense of wanting to keep proving himself to himself. Give us the quick tennis origin story. Well, the funny thing is that Novak Djokovic and Rafa both grew up across the street from tennis courts.

Literally, if something else had been across the street, it might have been a different story. Novak's parents were skiers and Rafa's family, including his – Soccer. Yeah. Soccer was his uncle. Miguel Angel was a big soccer star in Spain. He played for Barca and played for Mallorca and the national team. And Rafa grew up in that culture of that. And he had one uncle, Tony, who was a very, very good national level tennis player, took Rafa out and played with him. And Rafa showed this incredible ability from an early age. Yeah.

He just didn't miss a ball. He, of course, played tennis lefty, but he's a natural righty? I would call him mixed-handed. He signs autographs with his right hand, plays golf right-handed. He does just about everything right-handed. Is there a reason his coaches said there might be some advantage to playing tennis lefty? Ultimately, they left it up to him. What they did impose was he had two hands on both sides. He had a two-handed forehand and a two-handed backhand. Two-handed backhands are coin of the realm at the highest level in tennis. Two-handed forehands are very, very rare. And Tony, his uncle, said...

I don't know anybody who reached number one in the world with two hands on both sides. Well, it limits your reach. Except for Monica Seles in the women's game who did that. But on the men's side, it's never happened. Of course, his huge weapon was this left-handed forehand and this looping spin. But as you write, it's not just the amount of spin, which has been measured, but the speed plus the spin. So he's able to just create pace and spin at the same time. Both he and Federer were able to do that. They hit something called a straight arm forehand. Extraordinary.

extremely difficult to time and get right. But if you do, it's kind of the ultimate solution to the physics problem of how to hit a forehand. It grinds you down. It wears you out. Just incredibly high bouncing and heavy. Nadal won a ridiculous 14 French Open titles in addition to Wimbledon and the Australian Open and the U.S. Open. Of course, the French Open is on the clay surface, not the hard quartz, not grass, but

What about his game or maybe his personality is suited to Clay? Well, first of all, it was his childhood surface. And I think it's a surface that rewards grit because it's gritty itself.

But also because it's a bit slower and the ball bounces up a bit higher, you have more time for point construction, much more tennis geometry that's expressed. The game is fed up so much with the technology, the rackets and the strings. Clay still requires you to construct a point in kind of the old-fashioned way. And I think just sort of the way clay gets under your skin and your pores everywhere over your socks and everything else, it becomes part of you.

Clay, it's slippery. Choreography of that is key. And it's very, very hard to learn to be a native slider, which Nadal was. And a lot of these great clay court champions have been over the years. And I think Nadal is a dancer on the clay as well as he's a battler on the clay. He won so many times in Paris. But let me ask you, what was his relationship with French fans?

complex in a lot of ways. I mean, the French traditionally liked the underdog and Nadal was anything but an underdog. First match he lost there in 2009 against Robin Söderling of Sweden. The crowd was actively rooting against him.

At that point, I think there was a combination of tired of the same story every year, which is totally understandable. And also because Nadal's outrageous dominance and a time in world sport when there was a lot of questions about doping and other issues like that. And there were some allegations that were made. Nothing was ever proven. Nadal, you know, actually went to court vehemently fought against. But this was at the time of Lance Armstrong doping scandals right around many track and field scandals. And I just think there was sort of this sense from Armstrong, especially if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And, uh,

It's true. What he was doing, even to me, I watched every one and it still just boggles my mind to think someone was able to do that. And against the likes of Djokovic and Federer, these are all-time great players and he was able to do that the way he did it. The rivalries with

With Federer, with Novak Djokovic, we know some rivals hate each other. But Nadal, well, let's hear Nadal talk about rivalries and human relationships again with his interview with Andy Ruddock. I think we show the world that we can be the biggest rivals, but at the same time, we can be colleagues. I mean, I don't say best friends, but we can have a good personal relationship.

Do you sense that what he's saying here, given all that you know and all the time you spent with Rafael Nadal, that that's really genuine? I think what he said there really describes how it all turned out. All you have to do is watch Roger Federer's retirement ceremony in London a couple of years ago when they're both crying and the emotion's real. And I think they came to realize those two, and I think Djokovic as well, as part of it, but really Rafa and Roger who were the first ones to create the rivalry that –

Their great matches, their rivalry was bigger than their sport, and it could help the sport as a whole. And I think they really embraced that. And ultimately, the more you know about them and the more you report on them, Roger and Rafa have a lot in common. You know, I have to ask about his tics. We've all seen this, right? Before Nadal serves, he fixes his hair, pulls on his shorts, bounces at the tennis ball many, many times.

Where is that from? It's a great question. And one of the things I learned, I talked to a guy named Geoffrey Porta, who was one of the assistant coaches, if you will, in Rafa's very early career in Mallorca, the island that he's from. And Porta said that, you know, when he and Tony are watching Rafa play young, he's

They noticed he was playing at light speed and he's a heavy investment kind of guy and it was wearing him out. So they actually introduced the idea of slowing things down with a few rituals. And ultimately, the guy that you see, the guy that we've seen for so many years in this sort of ponderous, ritualistic, get on with it, Rafa. Yeah. That's not really his true nature. His true nature is much more of a manic, aggressive, let's resolve the conflict thing. But it was a learned behavior. Finally, what do you learn? Maybe something you didn't know from writing this book about Nadal.

I think the more you sort of spend time in his culture and his community, you realize it kind of took a village. They all played a role in kind of giving him the elements that he needed. And the idea of this book, Scott, was to look at all the effects he had on people within the tennis community, especially the French Open community and the clay court community. It's just that whatever that is inside Rafa, that desire to improve constantly, no matter what the results are.

That internal flame, I don't think you can teach that or create that. That's something that comes from deep inside you. And I think he has that. The book is The Warrior, Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay. And we've been talking to the author, Christopher Clary. Christopher, congratulations on getting this out. And thanks so much for talking about it. My pleasure, Scott. This message comes from Thrive Market. The food industry is a multibillion dollar industry, but not everything on the shelf is made with your health in mind.

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