"I’ve gotten so used to Rafa being knocked back and then drawing on that deep inner lava flow that makes him who he is and then sneer-serving his way to total razing victory that it simply never occurred to me, even during the stress of most of the fifth set, that he would lose. But Rosol, ranked 100th or so in the world, playing in the main event at Wimbledon for the first time, coming off five straight years of first-round Wimbledon qualifying-tournament losses … Rosol just would. Not. Spook.
The serves kept cracking. Sometimes you catch a break. At one point, I think in the third set, Rafa sprinted at the net after a serve, and Rosol’s return wrong-footed him, and he fell awkwardly, with his legs splayed in unpleasant directions, and took a long time getting up. He went back (slowly) to the baseline, then tried to do a little bob-and-weave to get his juices flowing, only right after he started he stopped and just stood there with his head down. It was the first time I could remember seeing Rafa look like raw determination was failing him.
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What I realized during this Australian Open is that Nadal sets the tone for this state of affairs more than anyone else, certainly more than Federer. Roger is so cool and frictionless that, most of the time, he seems less like a prism of epic intensity than a dispassionate analyst of it. Djokovic, since his ascent, has been so much better than everyone else that he’s largely been able to act like a careful clinician, the administrator of his own talent. And Murray has lost to the other guys so often that his anger and frustration seem basically inconsequential. In other words, the game may be epic for the fans, but you won’t always catch that ground note of holy-shit intensity if you only watch the other three players. Left to themselves, they don’t exactly project deep contact with the secret fires of time.
Nadal, though? He plays like he’s fighting giants. It’s not just the sneer, or the muscles, or the hair, or that forehand — you know, the one where he swoops the racket all the way around his head like he’s whipping the team pulling his chariot. It’s also that frantic tenacity that used to drive me so nuts. Federer seems devastated when he loses but he also seems to sense losses coming and accept them before they arrive. When Nadal falls behind, he turns the match into life and death. He gets mad. He hesitates less. He hits the ball harder. He doesn’t look sad or scared. He looks defiant, and he plays like he’s possessed.
As a result, he carries matches to a higher plane than they have any business reaching. Djokovic could and should have won the Australian final in four sets, but Nadal refused to surrender, played lethal tennis, and took Djokovic to a place he’d never been. Instead of notching a routine victory, Djokovic had to tap into the same well of inspiration that Nadal was already drawing from. You could say that all these guys have learned what it means to fight on the plains of Troy because Nadal does it in every match. And we see him do it, so we know what it means, too.
Watching this week’s tennis reminded me of this essay on Grantland. Such a great description of what Rafa brings to tennis. Watching Andy Murray play any of these guys just feels so empty. Maybe that will change if Murray actually wins a title (but I doubt it). Murray looks defeated before the match even begins.
Without Nadal there is an intensity that is lacking. I think a lot of people are irritated by him. His butt picking and his long pre-serve habits. But I find that when he’s gone you realize just how much you love to love or hate him. It’s the intensity that got me so into tennis. And sometimes I wonder if I’ll be nearly as into it when Rafa’s career is over.
