Rafael Nadal - A real god, not made of clay

Rafael Nadal – King of Clay

The phrase “never say never” goes well with Rafael Nadal’s career graph. This God (of tennis), Rafael, whose name in Spanish refers to God who heals, is himself fully healed and has been performing with full zeal ever since his comeback from his knee injury. Amidst injuries, he has still proved to his fans and his critics how good a player he is and how passionate and hungry he is for the game.

At the start of the year, he had been written off by most of the experts due to constant problem in the knee and he wasn’t being seen as a threat by any player. However, he appeared in his first event of the year on 5th February,2013 at the Chile Open. He appeared in both the singles and doubles event and was good enough to beat his contemporaries and enter the finals in both the tournaments.

His success continued when he played his second event of the year, the ‘Brasil Open’ in Sao Paulo as he went on to defeat David Nalbandian and lift his first title of the year and was also the runner up in the doubles category. After a break of two weeks, he  bounced back into news by defeating David Ferrer in the final of Mexican Open in Acapulco, thereby, winning his second title of the year.

His next participation was in Indian Wells, where he emerged victorious by defeating Del Potro  4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the finals, winning his record breaking 22nd ATP Masters 1000 event and his third Indian Wells title in the process. He continued his winning streak by extending his masters title to 24 just before the French Open.

Rafael Nadal certainly looked all fit and raring to go at Roland Garros this year. He was in prime form and nothing seemed like going against him during the French Open as he defeated Novak Djokovic in an epic match and further consolidated his performance by defeating David Ferrer in straight sets in the final to win the title for the eighth time.

The match against Novak Djokovic in the French Open was a real test of his character as the match lasted for 4 hours and 37 minutes and both the champions were in no mood to show any signs of mercy towards each other. Nadal had won the first set and had taken a lead in the second after which he lost momentum and gifted the set to Djokovic to make it one set each.

He dominated the third set as he won 6-1 and led twice by a break in the fourth set but Djokovic was smart enough to break back on both occasions and win the set in the tie-breaker. The momentum and luck seemed to be with Djokovic as he was leading 4-2 in the last set after which Nadal made an impressive comeback to win the set and enter the final and subsequently win the French Open for the eighth time. But his happiness and prime form was short lived as he was eliminated in the first round of Wimbledon 2013 against a low ranked Steve Darcis of Belgium.

For the first time, losing a first round match in a Grand Slam, he was dejected and preferred not to blame the defeat to his knee problem and gave full credit to his opponent and accepted that he was outplayed by him in every department of the game. Being typecast as a clay court player, he chose to take a seven week break after the debacle in Wimbledon and swore to come back in style.

He did not disappoint as he reached the final in Montreal (Rogers Cup) played on hard court, defeating the Jerzy Janowicz and putting up a strong performance against his arch rival Djokovic to defeat him for the second time in the year. He won the title for the third time in Montreal by defeating  Milos Raonic in straight sets by taking the first two sets 6-2, 6-2 without much fuss and competition and thereby winning his 25th Masters title.

He continued his astonishing run with the racket in the recently concluded Southern & Western Open by winning the title and displaying an outstanding performance by defeating Roger Federer, Tomas Berdych and John Isner to remain undefeated this year on hard court. It has been a proud moment for the Spaniard to not only win the French Open for the eighth time and continue to dominate the clay courts but also remaining unbeaten in hard courts, something which has not happened in his career before.

But this article is not about the achievements and purple patch of this legendary player. It is about his love for the game, the desire and enthusiasm to perform and keep performing till the very end of his career. His zeal to perform and continue to prove his mettle as a great player is beyond comparision. It has been worth praising and inspiring too.

He was nowhere in picture last year after his continuous injuries and mishaps. Every expert and analyst had written him off as a tennis player. There was not much hope from him that he would ever be able to come back  and perform as he is doing right now, but he chose to fight.