Thoughts ...

Le sigh ... I fear my ramblings today might be like no other as I have a myriad of thoughts and feelings that have been going through my mind over the past week.

So let's start with last week.  No, of course I didn't put myself through watching Rafa's defeat to Ferrer, but as time has passed, I'd more and more thought that it was just one of those bad days at the office.  I'd thought that a 500 series event in Barcelona would be good for him.  A few more matches under his belt, a smaller field, an opportunity for him to find some rhythm and confidence, and more importantly ... hopefully he'd see himself the victor and like last year, launch the start of another clay season filled with victories.

But just as Rafa has those voices in his head, I have mine, and they were taking me down this particular path in the days following Monte Carlo.  I'd started out cursing the now obvious patterns that have emerged in Rafa's career.  You know, stellar season that sees himself propelled to the World No. 1, followed by a season of self doubt, losses and sometimes injury, until a combination of the above makes for the loss of that No. 1 ranking ... until he comes back and starts the process all over again. 

"Rafa prefers to be the hunter, not the hunted" is a phrase that is often used with him and why?  Because the patterns of his career show it to be true.  And my cursing comes from the fact that we know from Rafa's book, from what Rafa says and more to the point - from what Toni says - that every man and his dog is "better than us".  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that when you've had a lifetime of being told that everyone is better than you, you believe it, and in Rafa's case, he translates it onto the court into fear. Yes fear ... because it doesn't matter who's facing him on the other side of the net, that player could beat him.  So he fights and he battles, and he runs down balls and exhibits his own beautiful play, and his will becomes iron because although he knows that the other player can beat him, the fear of that forces him on till there's not a shred of himself left ... and in most cases in those sort of circumstances, he wins.

And those wins translate in titles, into points, into Slam victories, till they eventually see him as No. 1 because he's hunted down all those that lay before him and his fear has made him win.  But it is at this precise point where Toni has singularly failed the charge which he believes he has created ... because Rafa is totally ill equipped to deal with being The Best in the World.

The best?  What's that?  Isn't everyone else supposed to be better than him?  It sits uncomfortably with him, he feels ill at ease.  He re-directs all those questions when journalists get one step ahead of who he might face in the next round.  Because anyone can still beat him.  If he hasn't got a target, he seemingly has no aim.  He's shy, he doesn't want the spotlight ... he doesn't possess one ounce of the arrogance and smug qualities of our friend Federer.  He doesn't believe that something like the World No. 1 is his divine right, as Djokovic does.  And I am sure that every single Rafa fan from far and wide will say that this is why we love him.  And it is.  But this Rafa fan also feels that it's OK to be No. 1 ... it's OK to be the best at what you do - and being coached to handle yourself when you're at the top of the pile is every bit as important as the psychological boo-ha-ha you teach when your subject is climbing his way up there.

Many [many] years ago, I was sent on a Confidence and Assertiveness training course.  For those of you who know me - yes I was - and I have a lasting memory.  I was wearing a sage green tunic top and I had draped a matching sage green scarf with black polka dots around my shoulders. The whole ensemble was held together by an amazing, 1950's sterling silver brooch.  I walked into the room, and the guy running the course said ... "Wooffs, you look fantastic today.  That colour really suits you."  And all I could do was turn purple and stammer, kick my heels, look downwards and say "oh ... this old thing.  I've had it in my wardrobe since... " at which point he held up his hand to stop me and said, "I've paid you a compliment.  Accept the compliment, say thank you, feel good for the time it takes you to say thank you ... and we move on."  I've never forgotten that, and I hope my point is not lost on you.  Being paid the compliment gave me confidence, and what he said afterwards taught me how to handle that situation in future opportunities.  It didn't change me as a person, it didn't make me think that every time I walked into a room I was the most beautiful woman in it, it didn't stop me from trying hard to look nice again, it just made me feel good.  And I moved on.  So rather than Rafa's family being afraid to congratulate him and say how well he'd done when he'd won anything, and worse still being berated for saying good things, perhaps the philosophiser Toni should have also taught Rafa how good it feels to be wearing a nice, sage green top.

Just saying ...

Sorry for that, but when I see Rafa struggling for confidence against a player ranked 140 in the world when he's only lost 22 matches in his entire career on clay ... the voices in my head speak to me.  But as for yesterday's match ... well, I missed the first set but by all accounts with 2 breaks he was playing well.  And as I watched the second set, I was really pleased because I saw so much in Rafa's play that was very good.  Had he managed to convert any one of those 5 break points he would have won the match well ... and deserved it.  But Almagro did make a fight of it, and it went to a breaker - where I still believed that Rafa would win.  However, at 5-5 with the ball skidding off the line and Rafa having no chance to hit it, it gave Almagro the set point which he converted and there you had it.  Everyone says that tennis is built on the tiniest of margins ... and it's true.  Again in the third set with a break, you feel confident.  But if I'm going to be left with a slight niggle from yesterday it's not the loss of the match, it's how Rafa's serve went away from him in the third after him serving so well and winning so many points off it.  You can't help thinking about the back, that's all.  And when Rafa was so good to keep breaking, he then nets what for him should have been the simplest of forehands into an empty court to once again level up at 5-5 ... but he missed.  As I've been saying since before Monte Carlo, Rafa won a number of matches last year that so easily might not have gone his way.  And at the moment ... that is simply not happening.

I'm not in the bowels of depression though, because whilst I'm disappointed for Rafa, I still saw enough to feel that it could be coming together.  And I don't want to be subsumed with angst and worry and flip into panic mode about the Masters and the French Open.  Because at some point, I feel I need to take a step back and look at Rafa's tennis and his clay court prowess with some perspective.  When I did the post before the start of Monte Carlo, I went on about those that have prophesied Rafa's clay court downfall for years - the point being, that if you say if for long enough, eventually it will happen.  That's not having fabulous insight, it's just stating the bleedin' obvious.  And I'm wondering if Benito will post another ill-advised tweet or Facebook message along the lines that they'll be writing his obituary but we will see him come back again.  Sighs again ...

Because let's just consider for a moment all that has happened in Rafa's career.  The 2006 foot injury where he thought he might never play again.  The knee injuries that took him out for a period in 2009. The 7 month lay off starting in 2012 where we wondered whether we would ever see him again. Missing out on the Olympics, missing out on so many Slams, having to work hard, stay focused, have needles stuck in his knees, have pain that some days it was agony for him even to walk. And through all that ... to still somehow have the mental fortitude to keep going, to keep trying, to keep working.  After the Australian Open in 2011, Rafa talked about how difficult it was for him to recover from not being able to take his chance of winning a Calendar Grand Slam.  Think about turning up for all of those finals in 2011 - and not winning any of them.  He's still talking now of the pain to his psyche of being unable to beat Wawrinka at this year's Australian Open final - missing out on his 14th Slam and equaling Sampras's record, of creating his own record of winning at least 2 of all of the Slams.

Let's consider for a moment the clay, and that from 2006-2008 he started racking up the clay court titles ... which didn't really matter at that point cos this muscly upstart from Mallorca was only ever going to be the King of Clay, and who cared about that anyway? ... everyone knows that in tennis, clay titles don't count.  But then Wimbledon came, and the Australian Open came, and people had to start taking note that this guy was becoming the real deal ... and so it became open season on him.  So whereas once no-one really cared about the clay court season and Rafa Nadal, it suddenly attained some focus. And not in a positive way of course.  Not in the way of "let's stand back and admire what this young man is starting to achieve".  No ... it's sitting back and speculating about who could stop him.  Who could stop his 81 match winning streak?  The earth tremors on the day that Soderling beat  him at the French Open. Will Novak beat him at Hamburg to take the No. 2? Who can break his current streak of wins at the French Open?  Is Rafa's reign now really coming to end? The headlines are created when he loses ... not when he wins.

So can you imagine the pressure of all of this?  The mental strain of being the hunted, year after year after year on the clay ... being in the very position that he has no real training of how to be.  Where every time he steps out on court he won't ever gain a ranking point, just lose them.  And he may still only be 27, but it's his 10th season of doing it.  His tenth.  And I don't think enough emphasis is given to that.  Rafa first started winning Monte Carlo and Barcelona at the age of 18.  He was days into his 19th year when he won the French Open for the first time.  2005-2006-2007-2008-2009-2010-2011-2012-2013, and here we are in 2014 when the expectation is still there that he should win it all and he must be in crisis if he doesn't.  I shrug my shoulders.  Roger Federer as a top 10 player won Wimbledon for the first time at the age of 22 in 2003, a month shy of his 23rd birthday.  Nine years later, was he still playing under the heavy burden that he should win 5 straight tournaments - 3 of them Masters and one of a them a Slam ... of course he wasn't.  So why should Rafa's genius be any different?

As I said, I watched yesterday and still thought there was enough about Rafa's play that was good and to be positive about. Seeing his body language in his presser and the things that he said, it's clear that he knows he should have won that match, that he was the better player for 2 sets, and that he should have taken his opportunities.  And rather than worry about the up-coming Masters because the other players might believe he's there for the taking ... well Rafa is comfortable with that.  He's programmed to work better when he's having to play at his very best to beat them, rather than them gunning for him because he's the best.

And to end the post, I want to metaphorically say some things to Rafa.  That he looks good in a sage green top.  That he's the best player to have ever graced a clay court, that it's OK to be proud of all he's achieved.  That he's the best there is, and I consider it to be an absolute privilege to have witnessed him first hand dancing away with his genius on the deep red clay courts of Europe.

Now say thank you Rafa ... and move on to Madrid.