Tennis

20. Clarey, Warrior (16 November 2025)

by kurto

Portrays Rafael Nadal as the competitor’s paragon, focused on one’s own potential while gracious to rivals and sundry. Nadal blended ambition of overachievement – not so much better than others as better than Rafa – with a common decency rare among champions.

Nadal, semi-ambidextrous, consciously adopted a lefty forehand, which became his signature ‘sobraquero’. The move may have hindered his service game, but was unsolvable until Novak Djokovic began to attack it, forestalling Nadal’s running around backhands to hit winners and instead forcing him to the sidelines. Carlos Moyà’s training with Nadal, aged 24 and 14, respectively, in Mallorca saved the latter from having to move to Barcelona.

Roland Garros and more generally clay courts were ever his forte. 2010 may have been his finest season. Returning from injury, he claimed three Grand Slam titles; he withdrew from the Australian with a knee injury. Nadal missed 15 Slams through injury, Federer 6, Djokovic 1 (through publication in 2024). He finished 14-0 in Paris, 8-8 in all other tournaments.
Nadal relished his rivalry with Roger Federer, thinking it made both better; but Federer would haven happy to be alone at the summit. Novak Djokovic would later become his paramount rival because of shared relentlessness; Nadal never beat him on a hard court after 2013.

Nadal’s work ethic wasn’t delayed gratification, it was gratification. He simplified the complex and the tense via routine and habit, as a counterbalancing of nervous energy. Some paraphrases: to become better the past must have a place in the present; I am not injured but pain-free is a long time ago. On the possibility of retirement: Not if I hadn’t pushed myself to the summit of possibility, where I am not capable of being better; but if I have, then it’s justified.

His well-trained body follows the demands of the mind, according to the sculptor of his Stade Roland-Garros statue. The figure was controversial for its unveiling prior to Nadal’s retirement, a view Clarey shares. Yet Nadal was notable for cleaning courts after practice and recognizing tournament personnel. To not acknowledge people he knew (i.e., Clarey after a press conference) would have rude in Nadal’s view, making him an outlying superstar.

The development of clay courts in France, Spain, and Italy greatly expanded the scope of tennis, since lawn courts were difficult to maintain in the Mediterranean (and prior to modern hard courts). Clarey frequently sketches France’s early 20th-century mousquetaires, Suzanne Lenglen, and the unique flavor of the Roland Garros tournament (the French Open) as well as French administration.

NB: Goethe – ‘Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of life’.

6. Clarey, Master (16 April 2025)

by kurto

A privileged, well-drawn biography of Swiss tennis great Roger Federer, highlighting the once-temperamental teenager’s transformation to a paragon of elegance as well as his rivalries with Raphael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Federer uniquely directed a long-lived, peripatetic career, managing business decisions (with his wife’s help) and leading the player union’s welfare and also promotional activities. He had chosen tennis over soccer for the promise of superior individual control of affair (i.e., less dependency on team and third-party management). The untimely passing of early coach Peter Carter, whom he had somewhat unsentimentally released, was a turning point.
Consistency of preparation was key to his game, and to a career largely free of major injury. Federer mastered ‘joindre l’utile a l’agreable, the conjoining of the necessary with the interesting / engaging. In his late teens, he briefly retained sed a performance psychologist prior to his breakthrough wins, which sits uneasily with his individualism.

Federer’s game is most comparable to Sampras; but the prior generation was far less likely to socialize together, and Federer enjoyed the demanding travel schedule. The arrival of Nadal, whose forte was the French clay and style more fiery and gritty, made for a rivalry that lifted both players. Djokovic, the latecomer, was more the master technician, always searching for a better approach. Federer’s claim to primes inter pares is his success at Wimbledon, the most elegant of the Grand Slam tournaments.

Federer piled up major tournament wins before the other two arrived, and can be criticized for collapsing in Slam finals. He never defeated both Nadal and Djokovic in a Grand Slam tournament.

Refreshingly free of hyperbole, Clarey’s sketch abounds with mostly unobtrusive personal interjections and includes a fair amount of tennis history. One wonders whether the introduction of the Hawkeye technology facilitated Federer’s grace?