Talking 'The Warrior - The Rafael Nadal story' with Chris Clarey

Hi, this is Billie Jean King. This is Marion Bartotti. This is Bianca Andreescu. I'm Mats Villander. This is Mary Carrillo. This is Pam Shriver. This is Yannick Noah, and you're listening to the Tennis Podcast.

well it's a very warm welcome to a man i've known for many many years and whom i had the pleasure of speaking to about his previous book the master the story of Roger Federer and formerly of the New York Times and now author of The Warrior. It is Christopher Clary. Chris it's lovely to have you with us.

David, yeah, special to talk to you about this book. Yeah, it's been a long time coming, hasn't it, for you, this follow-up book. I mean, how long has it taken you to get to this point where I'm holding it in my hands right now? It's a hefty thing. You know, this book has obviously taken 20 years to do because you had to have been around to write it this way, you know, with Raf at the beginning.

And I had just left Spain where I lived for eight years in 2004 when he first started to really emerge and won the Davis Cup with Spain and all that. You can go back to there in terms of gestation period. But I mean, this book itself being produced, it was about a two-year process. And initially it was going to be a one-year process, but a lot of things happened along the way to putting the plate on the table. So it ended up being a two-year process.

And it comes out at an incredible time, really, with Roland Garros just a week or two away, with Rafa having finally called time on his career, and we know he's going to come out and... and be celebrated and remembered in person on Court Philippe Chatrier, where he created all those incredible memories. I just wonder, just in general, How did the experience of writing this compare to writing The Master?

Well, I think the key thing, and you know this from all your years of broadcasting and journalism, it's you don't want to repeat yourself. And having written the book on Federer, it's a similar era. Of course, they overlap so much and their stories are intertwined. just as Djokovic is with them as well. And I did not want to write the same book by just sort of changing the chapter headings and making it all about Rafa.

I really wanted to find a new way to get into this topic, and I wanted to do justice to Rafa's career. But above all, I just was so fascinated, even after covering it all the way through, and I don't know if you would agree, but 14 to me is just, it still doesn't seem real that somebody could do that at Roland Garros. knowing what I knew before, even looking back and thinking about Navratilova winning nine Wimbledons, which just seemed preposterous at the time that she did it.

So that was sort of the crux of it. I was looking for a way into Nadal. I had all this access and exposure to him and really seeing his career develop in the very beginning on the pro circuit anyway.

i wanted just to find the right mix to make it work creatively and also i think in terms of narratively really it was important to find something a bit different in it I guess my thesis was I wanted people 10, 20, 30 years from now, if they happen to pick this thing up, and who knows if they'll even have it on a bookshelf anywhere by then, but the idea would be I wanted you to understand.

the place and the man and how 14 happened, how that was possible. Because to me, as Feliciano Lopez says in the early part of the book, I mean, you don't even dream of 14 French Opens. It's not something you even dream about. It's not even in the realm of the possible when you're starting out your career when you're Rafa. How we got from something unthinkable to 14 was, to me, a process I wanted to bring out. And you know this because you know me. My wife is friends.

I lived a few blocks from Roland Garros in the early years of my marriage. I still have a place in Paris. I'm very connected to that society, and I've covered... Many, many sports events in my career at the Times and the International Herald Tribune, all different things, you know, winter, summer, spring and fall, not just tennis, but the event that I really know the best and I connect with the most is Roland Garros.

So I think I would have had I'd be having a big regret if I hadn't read the book about Roland Garros. And I think I would have had a big regret if I hadn't written a book about Nadal. So I put them together, and I wanted to tell Rafa's whole career story. I think that's important. but i wanted to do it through the prism of this of the clay and through the place and i think that's how it worked for me because there's all these long projects

You live with them. You breathe them. And you want to be able to sustain that creative energy. And you need a fresh narrative idea to do that. For better or worse, you tell me that was how I approached it.

at least it worked for me creatively. Well, that's certainly how it comes across. One of the things I've got written down is that it feels like a love letter to Clay Court Tennis and a love letter to Roland Garros and a love letter to Paris. Yeah, I mean, it's very personal for me, David. I mean, I was... monolingual American, fell in love with a French woman and moved to Paris with very rudimentary French and big wide eyes.

walked through the gates of Roland Garros when Roland Garros was a very different place back in 1991 when I first went. So it's been a gradual growth process. you know for me all the way through my adult life and my career and Roland Garros has been at the heart of it so it's it's a it's something I wanted to try to do justice to and I didn't want it to distract from Nadal's achievements. This book is about Nadal and it should be.

It's not about me and my little journey. There's a little bit of that in the book, but I felt like it was a good way to describe his impact. on the place and the place's impact on him. One of the things I like and I've got it open in front of me right now is inside the sleeve of the copy I have the actual hard back of the cover is

clay court color it is the red clay court color of rolling aros which i think is a is a beautiful thing on the cover is the title the warrior who came up with that You know, after we decided to call the Federer book The Master, I felt like it would be nice to find some symmetry. And I just, I don't like more imagery. It's not something I'm seeking out. I know not everybody would approve of connecting that with sports and I understand that but I do think that Nadal's approach

There's not a lot of hearth in it. Not a lot of laughter and lightness. It's a heavy thing. And to watch him prepare, as we all have, with the headband going on and the personality changing in rap is a very friendly... open person behind the scenes at all these tournaments, see somebody who... will greet everybody as if he's entering the street in his Mallorcan town of Manacor and saying hello to the shopkeeper and everybody else. He just is very connected to the societies in which he is.

But then when it comes time to go out there, it really did feel like he was about to do battle in a way that I can't say I could equate to any other player that I've watched. and Jimmy Connors, Leighton Hewitt. Those are very intense tennis players, but there was something more ritualistic. and I had a lot more gravitas in some ways the way Nadal approached a tennis match and to me it just seemed it really seemed inevitable to call it the warrior for that reason.

And the way he plays, David. It's the way he plays. Everything is... It feels like there are greater stakes than just a yellow ball going across a net. Yeah, you know, just thinking back to when he would emerge out of a tunnel backstage and onto the court, I can remember so many times the sort of hair standing up on the back of my neck.

because of the way he looked the way he was ready for battle the way he was ready to put everything on the line and no matter what and I don't think I have ever seen anybody else quite like that and it was

match in match out there was never a day off there was never a sort of half effort was there and I think that that is something that everybody takes with them as their as their memory of nadal i'm just looking in a little bit more about the the structure of this book chris because Before you get into the actual reading of the book itself, which by the way is out here in the UK in a couple of days' time on Thursday of this week, depending on when you're listening.

to it and you can get it in all the bookshops wherever you get your books you'll be able to get this book the chapters Chris under the contents they're all named the something and and it starts with the monument the code the weapon and it goes on and on and i just wonder how did you come up with that as a structure for for this for this book Well, again, I just i think there's simplicity in rafa and there's a there's a code to rafa and a rhythm to rafa and i felt that it would

having different titles for the chapters would just wouldn't feel right i mean obviously they have different words in there but the rhythm and the and the symmetry seemed important because in a way What has Rafa done in his career? It's been rhythm and symmetry going back to these places where he's won. And it's not just Roland Garros. Obviously, he's won 12 times in Barcelona and 11 times.

and Monte Carlo ten times in Rome. I mean, it's almost like a mantra in a way. So I did want to reflect that rhythm in the writing style and in the chapter headings. And there's a little bit of Spanish in there too. We've got La Primera. but it's still the same principle. I think in no way that I want people to get tired of Nadal's dominance or story in this, but I did want to reflect that it became almost as inevitable as a natural phenomenon in some way.

And I think one of the great benefits you have of writing this book now not only is Rafael Nadal's career finally at a close but also you were there for every stage of it you chronicled the whole thing you met him Very early on. I mean, when did you first hear the name Rafael Nadal? You're nice to bring this up and you're also cruel to bring this up. My first article about Rafael Nadal Pereira, which is what I first heard about him, this was 2002 when he won in Mallorca.

and won his first ATP main tour match when he got the wild card there.

on his home island um i had heard about him a little bit before from my time in spain i knew he was a rising talent clearly i knew about the connection to his uncle miguel angel nadal who was a very prominent soccer player and spanish national team member and barcelona star and all that and i had covered actually that nadal at the world cup when i was uh writing for the times in the usa for the us world cup so i knew the name nadal

And so when I wrote about Rafael Nadal Pereira the first time, Richard Gasquet had just done very well. In the same week or the same time, they both had won matches at this very early age, 15 or whatever it was. And I said it was really interesting to see that these two youngsters were doing so well, and they both had great one-handed backhands.

So I had never seen him play. I had just read about him and heard about him. And this is before YouTube and before, you know, social media clips and ATP.com and tennis TV and all that sort of stuff. You just didn't see these people.

I could certainly have done a better job of researching, obviously. But so I'm embarrassed to say that my first mention of Nadal in print was an error. So I could only go up from there. And when you actually... got eyes on him for the first time as a as a player what what were your impressions did you did you sense oh my word we've got something special straight away or or was this something that that wasn't immediate to the arc

Well, I first saw him play, not on clay, but on grass at Wimbledon, on a backcourt there. He was playing Mario Enchin. First round, 2003, Wimbledon. I don't remember which court it was on, but it was behind center court on the Ivy side. And I had obviously heard about him. I was intending to write about him. I was very curious to see how he would do. He had beaten Albert Costa, upset him in Monte Carlo on clay earlier in the year. And Costa was a defending.

or reigning french open champions that raised a lot of interest in rafa obviously and now he's on grass so i wanted to write about him then and i went out and watched the match and when i saw him from a distance on the court it looked to me like I was watching a 25 year old from a distance. He just looked. intimidating and powerful and just out of the physique of an adult.

And I was just, that was my, above all, that was my impression, just seeing him that way. And only when he got up close did you realize, oh, wow, okay, he's got chubby cheeks, and he's not fully formed, and he's got a little bit of acne, and he looks like a teenager. but from a distance it was watching you know a full-blown champion or a full-blown adult mature player on the atp and there was also this just relentless

positive energy and enthusiasm. He wasn't smiling or laughing, but he just had this. this great zeal for each point and uh you can see that from from the vantage point of this uh intimate part of wimbledon and then we interviewed him after i met tony that day as well after the match raffle one

And he was, in some ways, definitely not speaking English at that point. It was all in Spanish, and my Spanish was better in those days, but we had a small group of us that interviewed him, and he was very matter-of-fact. Pretty short answers, but he had a lot of presence, even around a bunch of older journalists in his first Grand Slam appearance.

and the thing that struck me was he was very much uh focused on succeeding on grass even then even in that first appearance he had played the boys tournament the year before and done pretty well But it was just clear that he was not viewing this like a lot of the Spaniards viewed grass. He viewed it as a place he was going to excel and a place he really enjoyed in terms of the challenge.

and everything else so he was talking about hey feliciano lopez has done well here so i he's shown the way for spaniards so i'm going to be able to do well too That was pretty unusual back in the day, wasn't it? I mean, I've been reading Hard Courts by John Feinstein, the late John Feinstein, over the last few weeks, and that's telling the story of the 1990 season, and very often...

Spanish players are just not arriving at Wimbledon. So this, I know he's mentioned Lopez, but I mean, that was still unusual. It was, yeah. I mean, you're coming from a time when, as you recall, Sergei Bruguera used the line about grasses for cows. Sergei Bergara, who won the French a couple of times.

and was probably a guy whose forehand in some ways was a bit of a prequel to Rafa because he had that big, big topspin forehand and sort of that huge trunk rotation and all that sort of stuff as a righty. Ball was bound up, didn't have the pace on it, but he had a lot of spin on it. But Sergei never liked the grass and guys like Kurecha and Loya and players like that, they just never really embraced it. And there was even...

When the seedings were being done according to the grass court formula, they were the ones who pushed about possibly boycotting and things like that if they didn't get an adjustment made.

There was a lot of negative energy in history with Spanish tennis players and Wimbledon, for sure, as Rafa emerged. But the other thing is that Tony really, Tony his uncle, Tony Nadal, really steeped him in. you know the culture of the spanish greats and he was well aware of santana who'd won at wimbledon and and he was well aware of of the success that some players had had in the past

And I don't know if he knew the year that Conchita Martinez had won Wimbledon, but he certainly was aware she had. So I was just very impressed that day by Rafa's connection to grass court tennis. in a way it was foreshadowing for what was to come and energy and and eagerness was going to be required to be able to take on the battles you had to take on on grass.

But that was the first time I saw him. And the place that I really just realized, I mean, I think that year, if he had played Roland Garros, he would have made an impact. And then the following year, I watched him some more, obviously, when he beat Federer in their first match in Miami. I wasn't present for that, but I watched that match. But I was in Seville for the Davis Cup final in 2004. And anybody who watched that.

especially in person you couldn't doubt that Nadal was going to be a a champion how great you didn't know but you knew he'd be a champion Yeah, that comes across in the pages and he played a world number one in Andy Roddick on that occasion at that formative age and all the accounts of the people that were there at that time. you got the feeling that they knew and did you I mean and it was really quick if you think about it that's the end of 2004 and

Six, seven months later, he's Ronan Garros champion. Would that have seemed outrageous at that time? No, it really wouldn't have. I think he would have won personally, David, if he played. I think he would have maybe had that breakout ability if he'd been healthy enough to play, which he wasn't. But I just think he was such a prodigy, such a fully formed.

sort of competitive talent i mean you think about some of the things that his rivals had to go through in terms of the mental game and the process to get to a level where they could win majors or be able to really compete at that level again and again raf already had it

From an early age, it was his body that was holding him back, if you ask me. And, of course, some of the technique, too. I mean, his game changed a lot over the years. But that competitive energy and belief was there from the start. There's a lot of stories you can tell about that earlier period, but I just...

That thing in Seville, I had lived in Seville for eight years. I knew the city very well. I know how motivated Andy Roddick and the Americans were to do well. Roddick had beaten the doll pretty easily earlier in the year on a hard court. I don't think he was looking forward maybe to play Rafa. And I don't think when I first talked to him, he didn't know he was going to play Rafa. It was probably going to be Ferraro.

the Spanish captains, Jordi Arreza and Co. decided to put Nadal in instead of Ferraro, who was struggling a bit, which was a big sign, as you said, for this faith and this knowledge that they had of what they had on their hands. but you can say all that but until you see somebody with this massive stadium and massive expectation and really huge pressure. The Davis Cup was a big deal in Spain. Not as big a deal now, but it was a big deal. This was a big moment.

and he just rose up and chewed up the scenery he just did it was and when you watch that i just don't think that that doesn't lie you know when you see somebody handle that kind of moment at that stage in that age If they can keep their body together, which didn't turn.

be easy for Rafa but if you can you know great things are ahead and and it was it was just a sensational performance obviously Carlos Moya finished it off and moya was you know the one who won the most points and did the most technically for that uh victory over the u.s and that davis cup title but but rafa was was the the energy in it. That's the one we all remember.

You mentioned he then goes on and he rips through that clay court season and just destroys everybody and has those epics where... that epic with Guillermo Correa in Rome. He wins Roland Garros. He beats Roger Federer in the semifinal, which

You make reference in the book to the photo shoot that they had before the semi-final, which was really, really unusual. I remember being at Queen's Club at the time for the job I was doing at that point in my career. And seeing that photo and just being... so swept up with the idea of this young who's just coming on strong and yet he's got an all-time great.

already as his opponent and he wins that and there's a memory in the book where you say you were at his celebration party Chris, that must have been quite a thing to be after Yes, I was. I mean, it was the New York Times invited, not Christopher Cleary, but I did get to go as their emissary. Yes, the thing about that, that was so exceptional. and I think you'd agree was that it was Rafa's first Roland Garros and yet he arrived with this aura and even though he wasn't the number one seed

he was the favorite in many people's minds. I think Federer had not been exposed yet on clay as rough as foiled, but it was for all of us who'd watched him rip through the clay court season. And when I'm Monte Carlo and meet Corey on that amazing match in Rome, it just, you know, nothing would have been surprising in terms of him winning. So I think that's unique. I can't think of anybody else in my time covering tennis who arrived at their first.

appearance at a major and was the favorite like that at that age and be able to handle it, sustain it and he didn't even go five sets and he only went five sets three times in his entire career at Roland Garros. So this is just outlier stuff. And then when I went to the dinner, he had won the title. They had organized a dinner for him at the Café du Lame, on the terrace overlooking the Eiffel Tower, classic Paris.

and lots of longer and i walked in together and lots had actually helped him warm up for a couple of these matches during the tournament and didn't know him well but i think the family was respecting that connection and walked in and we ended up uh i thought i'd see rafa kind of like that scene from alcaraz's documentary we saw recently when they're just going crazy and you know teenage exuberance and basically turning over the tables with joey after he wins the title

Rafa was kind of like a businessman closing a deal. He was dressed in his suit, looked quite serious, and we did an interview with the Eiffel Tower shining behind us. it was more matter of fact and he said i hope i won't change and i i don't think i will change and uh what matters to me is getting better day to day and improving on the player that i am and i'm not going to get tied up and focused on this

Which, you know, we're used to hearing those kind of comments from veteran players, but from a guy who just won his first French Open, his first major title. Lifetime dream. It did not seem like that. It seemed like very much the beginning of something, not at all the culmination. and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag, the second... Bob, it looks

Trying to do it all one trip. He shimmies the door open, steps over the door. Oh, and he stumbles. Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim, now that's a man who eats his protein-packed oikos. With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup, Oikos Triple Zero can help build strength for every day. Oikos. Stronger makes everything better.

Well, it certainly was that. It was. None of us had any idea how much of a beginning it was. I mean, as you say, there's just an absurdity to it, isn't there? I mean, I remember... my dad telling me about Bjorn Borg, the Wimbledon champion, and I remember looking it up and seeing he'd won five Wimbledons, and then I realised he'd won six French Opens, and that just seemed absurd. when you put it in that context to think of a guy At a single tournament winning 14. It's just.

especially a tournament of that level. I mean, this is just, everybody's there. Everybody wants it more than any other clay court event in the world. And there's a lot of good clay courts around. And he's the one who did it. I mean, it is otherworldly, really. Let me read you what Feliciano Lopez said to me for the book. It's on the first page of the book, actually. But he says, for me, it's the most amazing record in the history of individual sport.

To win a grand slam title, this is something you dream of as a tennis player. To win the same grand slam 14 times is not even something you dream of. It's insane.

Yes, it really is. I mean, you have interviewed him a lot of times. I mean, how many times over the years do you reckon you interviewed him? In different contexts, probably close to 20, I would say. And that's basically him going from, well, teenager through adulthood. through champion, through multiple champion, to eventually calling it a death.

We know how he developed as a tennis player, but I don't know him very well. I've met him several times, interviewed him once or twice, but I don't know him like you would have got to know him. What was he like and how did he change over the years? Well, I think one of the key things to understand about about Nadal is that.

He really is a different character and a different type of personality in his native language or native languages i don't speak mayorky but uh spanish i definitely understand it and can have a sense of things with it and even from a pretty early age It was tough to really sometimes sit through some of the press conferences in English because they were interesting to be sure.

But Rafa almost had this sort of cuteness to him in English. He was almost mascot-like, you know, and he sort of sent his fragments. so struggling to get us to get his thoughts together but when you heard him speak in spanish and this maybe not right away but pretty soon in his career The young man had gravitas, and he's also got a lot of confidence and presence.

Most of the people that are covering the sport are 20, 30 years older than he is at this stage. And he can command the room just like he can command the clay court. And he did not shy from debate, did not shy from banter. I think he was somebody who really was able to have a lot of innate dignity. You could see that. And I'm not sure that always came through when he was speaking in English. Obviously, things changed over time, and maybe we got closer to...

a true convergence later on in his career. But in those early years, I think to really understand him, you had to speak Spanish and you had to see that side of it. to really understand how somebody could be that mature and that able to back up these.

these performances again and again and again that's the thing it just blows you away it's just a sedimentary rock of laying these layers of achievement one after the other how do you do that you have to have a special mentality and he does and i think

that came through more uh to me in his native language than than the other ones but the other thing is you know rafa by all accounts and you may have seen this in your various guys over the years on the tour but i just He really was able to reach out to people. and connect with them when he arrived at a tournament site.

treat them with respect and and with empathy and Federer does that too to some degree but I think you know Rafa having grown up in a village of people in Monocor in a very small tightly knit community one where Great success, I wouldn't say is frowned upon, but you don't want to seem higher or better than your neighbor in that environment.

And Rafa was raised in a, he was the first grandchild, but he was raised in a big family, also of high achievers. His father was a successful businessman and his uncle was a major sports star in Spain, Miguel Angel.

Can't forget that he comes from a family where the bar is pretty high, both in terms of achievement and in terms of behavior. And so I think that's the thing that's interesting to me to see how he would sort of transition from being... polite greet everybody likes to have fun too for sure and he's with his buddies watching a real madrid match i mean that's that's a whole bunch of uh timeless energy there but then when it came time to do the job whether it was

overheating and going crazy on the practice court with effort. Maybe not the kind of match he would play when it was all on the line. And then when he donned the battle gear before he went on court, there was a big contrast there and that's really interesting to see. how much disparity there was between sort of the off-duty Rafa and the on-duty Rafa. That's something that comes across in the book, and it's something I've witnessed over the years.

is he managed to strike that balance between being genuinely down to earth in so many ways being one of the all-time greats, and in your words in the book, not averse to the cult of Nadal. which you reference, I mean, there's huge celebrations of him at his academy and that sort of thing. But he sort of manages to carry all that off, doesn't he?

Yeah, that really struck me when I went to the academy. I was surprised by that. I think that didn't fit my understanding of how he wanted to project himself. I realized there's a huge competitive element and it passed the torch to the next generation element to it. But the museum and sort of the cult of Nadal and cult of Nadal's achievement was...

I was struck by that seemed a little bit out of tune for me. But the more I think about it, I do understand that if you're going to have a place like that and you're going to have people come visit and people from the young people in an academy. You want something to aspire to, something that seems real, that seems material. Obviously, Rafa's not going to play any big matches at the Tennis Academy at Maticor. or in Porto Cristo nearby, but those trophies and

And the multimedia stuff that's there does make it real. And from what I understand, he had to be convinced it wasn't something he wanted to do. But it is striking because Rafa really is somebody who... as likes to play down the achievement. However, Interesting thing is. There's a contrarian spirit there from my understanding and my feeling of it. Maybe he would debate this, but I guess in debating it, he would prove it true.

is that he likes a good argument. He and Tony would go at it, and he and his family around the dinner table would go at it, and he and his friends over Parcheesi or whatever it is, there's a lot of passion and debate going on. There's a lot of elements to that.

But I think you can't think he doesn't have a big ego somewhere to achieve what he's achieved. It's got to be there, that confidence and that presence. And when he walks into the room, and you've been in many rooms as he's walked in, he's not six foot six. But he's got a physical presence when he walks into a room. And not just because he's won 14 French Open. Something about him and the way he carries himself.

it really strikes you and it makes people think a little bit of someone like Yannick Noah a little bit. Even if you didn't know who he was, you would sort of turn your head and go, hmm, you could feel something change.

I mean, you've covered all these Ronan Garros triumphs and the Wimbledon ones and the US Open, the Australian Open. I mean, is the one triumph that stands out to you more than any other? That's a great question. I do think it's important to make this point, David. This book is a claycore journey, literally. There's a lot of clay on every page, it seems like, on the cover, like you said.

And it's Roland Garros-focused, for sure, for the reasons that I talked about. But we cannot underestimate Nadal as a multi-surface overall champion because the man won eight majors outside of clay. And he won the other three at least twice. So, even without the clay, if he'd never played a single match on the ATP Tour on clay, he would be a Hall of Famer, without a doubt. And eight majors... is as many as andre agassi and evan lindl and jimmy connor's won in their entire careers so

compare that. So Nadal and they are very understandably sensitive to being catalogued as a clay court specialist in terms of how Rafa's career is perceived. I know his Publicist Benito Perez Barbadio spends a lot of time fighting what he viewed as a reductive way of viewing Rafa. But I think it's no question it's his greatest achievement, 14 French Opens. And I kind of hesitate to not have one of the French Open titles be his greatest achievement.

Given that, I'd have to say within the French Open context, the last one, just given the state of his body and the state of his mentality, I saw him in Rome when he played Chapovalov and was limping around the court and just looked miserable both on the court and after. So I feel like the 22 when he had his foot numb for every match and had to fight through it on an advanced age and win was certainly his greatest Roland Garros achievement.

But I have to say, I mean, I think the 08 Wimbledon victory over Federer has to be the one just because it was. Not his happiest hunting ground. Federer was such a genius, such a great player on the grass. He had to fight so hard to get to that point, having played those two finals against him the previous years at the All England Club. And that match was really everything, wasn't it? In a way, much like the 2012 Aussie Open final against Djokovic was, that Nadal lost.

But I would say 08 Wimbledon deserves to be his crowning achievement just because he was having to play a bit against type to do it.

There's a chapter in the book, Chris, which, above all other, I think I found particularly interesting. And it's called The Backlack. And I should add, this book is the story of Raphael Nadal and his Kingdom of Clay. That's the subheading to the war. But while you've spoken to Nadal 20-odd times over the course of his career, you haven't written this with... This is your independent account. And I don't think

that if you're writing this with him, that there's a chapter in this book called The Backlash and what it ends up going on to discuss. And it really raises two questions from my standpoint. The first of them is, His relationship with Paris, with France generally, 14 Roland Garros titles, but it wasn't all plain sailing with the crowds there, was it?

No, it was a real journey. It really was, up and down. And part of that had nothing to do with Rafa. Part of that had to do with the era in sports and culture in which he arrived and emerged. with so much justifiable skepticism about great performances. having seen people like Lance Armstrong make a mockery of the Tour de France.

So many gold medals wrongly given when people were cheating and the doping scandals of Balco and everything else. So Roth's timing was difficult. And it's hard for somebody to come along and be that exceptional at something and not raise doubt.

So that was a bit the climate in which Rafa arrived. Also there were some doubts about Spanish sport at that time within France and later on in his career there would be satirical programs kind of the equivalent of the spitting image in the uk with puppets with the doll basically Carrying syringes and doing different things. So a lot of stuff that was really really sharp on that in terms of the doping aspect of it and

And people started suspicions about that. So that's part of it. None of which has ever been proven. And Rafa has defended himself successfully in court against any allegation that he ever had a positive test. But it certainly was part of the climate and so something you have to deal with.

worldwide a little bit, but especially in France because of the connections to cycling and track and field over there. But I think the other part of it is the french like a lot of publics around the world they don't want to see the same guy dominate their tournament their big big sporting event every year they want to see some variety they want to see some change they want to see some some new things and ravo

basically sucked the life out of the suspense at the Men's French Open for many years. So my feeling about the journey there was at the beginning they were Thrilled and enthused there were a couple tough moments against French players in those early years as a match against Grosjean 2005 the year he wins the French Open for the first time

when there's partisan behavior on the french crowd's part but generally they were very excited to see this prodigy come through and and uh and grab their imaginations with it cleatless shirts and capri pants and bandana and all the rest. And then when it became evident this was not going to be an occasional thing.

I think the French really rejected the concept. And then there's the match against Söderling in 2009. Rafa's first defeat at Roland Garros when the crowd was not just cheering for Söderling, they were cheering against Nadal. I was in the stadium. And it was definitely a hostile thing, and Rafa's errors were greeted with great enthusiasm.

So that was kind of a low point. And then there's a long period I would say where it's sort of a lot of ambivalence linked to some of these concerns about doping in the wider sporting culture. And then things, by the end, they really, really changed. And I think part of the process was Rafa having the staying power, Rafa having the tenacity, also ultimately. fighting some of these allegations in court when the French sports minister Bachelot, the ex-sports minister, says that his long layoff

you know, earlier in his career had been linked to testing positive and sort of being in what they call a shadow ban situation. Nadal insisted there was no truth to it. Finally went to court to prove it and he won his case. So that's a very eloquent thing. And then 15, 16, honestly, if we think about it, just difficult times for Rob.

that Djokovic beats him in the quarters in straight sets, and I don't think anybody was surprised. That was kind of an incompetence of crisis, facing anxiety on court, form of stage fright. just a really, really difficult time and he really felt like his era was ending. And then I think through some psychological help.

and through his own natural resilience and then bringing in carlos moya as part of the team and eventually the head of the team as tony stepped away all that allowed him to right the ship come back in 17 the same year federer does and have this enormous resurgence and rise back to the top of the game. And I think that's when things really started to turn. I think he had been humanized in the French public's eyes and ultimately... They just respect it.

his commitment to his sport, to his craft, and to their tournament. And they all realized by the end, I think, that they were seeing something extraordinary like we all did. And so that leads to moments like the Olympics and what we saw last summer when he's handed the torch by Zidane of all people, the French Real Madrid connection, Rafa being a huge Real Madrid fan and maybe a future Real Madrid president.

But I think you could just feel in those last years at Roland Garros, I know you'll feel it on May 25th, that deep connection and respect that he earned in Paris. the statue as you walk in the front entrance is pretty eloquent and he's not even french so it's uh to achieve that it had to be something extraterrestrial Pun intended. You, uh...

You make it clear in the book that you've been burned as a reporter, as many have, covering great sporting achievements over the years. because you've ended up having to turn around and realize that your eyes were being deceived. by their future positive tests. Now, Nadal never tested positive tests And there's no suggestion or reason to doubt any of his successes now in hindsight. But when it was going on, is that a challenge for you as a reporter? Does it make you question things?

Sure. I mean, I think we all have had to unfortunately deal with the fact that many times if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. And I sat there and watched Marion Jones dominate in the sprints and the long jump.

turned out to be a sham and I covered this amazingly symbolic shot put competition at the Athens Olympics in 1996 at ancient Olympia took the overnight bus and arrived Graggy to watch this sort of throwback competition on the hallowed turf of Olympia and the gold medalist test positive. It happened again and again to me, and it happened again and again to the public worldwide. So you can't help but be skeptical at some point of this extraordinary thing that you're watching in sports.

really tragic because there have been some extraordinary things that have happened that I know are legit, or I at least deeply hope are legit, and it's just a shame that we've had to suspend our sense of wonder. because of all the proof and evidence. And I don't think it's a majority of people that have created this issue. I think it's a minority. It certainly has changed our view of excellence and our enjoyment of it.

And Nadal definitely had to fight it. Is it fair in a way? Because let's face it, I mean, Federer was winning as much as he was, and I really didn't hear much of these things about Roger. It was partly the image that Nadal projected. And he did talk about this later on in his career, that he understood, I guess, even though he didn't like it and rejected the idea, but he understood, I guess, because of how he played, how he looked.

that he could create some sort of raised eyebrows in a way that others might not be able to. But we gotta go. to the standard that was uh being applied to everybody and and rafa at least to my knowledge and my reporting over the years there's nothing that shows he he doped and i and i feel like At the end, I think... His staying power and his ability to fight through all that and merge with his code and his energy intact was a big thing about it.

making uh making peace with the french public and for me i i just felt like You had to hold the authorities accountable because ultimately it wasn't for Nadal to prove that he was clean. It wasn't for Nadal to prove that. It wasn't his job. He was trying to do the best he could day to day, practice to practice. the people running the sport and part of the problem is and you know this from your early years

Tennis was not doing a great job for too long at controlling the anti-doping fight. They weren't doing enough blood testing. They weren't doing enough out-of-competition testing. It wasn't enough of a priority. But I do feel like we've over time come to a much more comprehensive place and it happened during Nadal's career. There's many things you can say about that, but I think that about sums it up.

You mentioned, Chris, that he might go on to be the president of Real Madrid. I just wonder what you do think he will go on to do, because satisfying that competitive streak isn't going to be straightforward. Well, he'll need competition. He will. And I suppose, I mean, I was joking about getting together with Djokovic and Federer and Murray for a golf match.

So he needs that outlet. It's just part of him. He has that life force in him and that energy. But I think you can see he's put up an interesting thing. This is not a 30-year-old retiree. This is almost a 40-year-old retiree. put a lot of things in place and an adult sort of business empire is already in place much like you know federer has done with all his various

connections and investments. I'm sure Nadal just running his academy business or being a part of that, the public face of a lot of that. And he has restaurants. He has a big, big global brand. He's not going to be a Pete Sampras who's going to kind of fade away and not be in the public eye.

He'll be out there, and that's why I think with his true passion for soccer and his true DNA of competition, I wouldn't put it past him to be the president of Real Madrid. I know it sort of at one point was almost like a joke, but I don't think it's a joke.

Wow, that would be quite something. Just a few final thoughts, Chris, more generally about... Other people related to Rafael Nadal in one way or another. And the first one is Carlos Alcaraz, who you referenced having seen his documentary. Now I saw. Alcraz's documentary as well and I was pretty horrified to be honest the number of times I heard in that documentary references to a sort of quest to become the greatest of history

when he's at such a formative stage of his career. It seems so anti-Nadal, for instance, so anti the kind of next ball, next match, next tournament. Do you worry at all for Carlos Alcaraz? I think that's an excellent point, David. Nadal did not get to be where he ended up being by putting that target on his wall and just chasing the number of titles he got there by.

Having a narrow competitive focus on the challenge at hand and trying to improve every day of his career with that full focus. And I think that's, as you watch the documentary. Juan Carlos Ferreira doesn't look terribly happy after a lot of the documentary.

Akira as his coach and mentor because I think he senses having lived through the era of Nadal and having been superseded by Nadal I think he knows what it takes and he knows it takes a presence of mind and a presence of commitment that her far far beyond the norm and I don't think he's sensing it in Carlos right now personally I think that's okay that's okay I don't think everybody should have that capacity it's such a rare thing that they'd be able to sustain it as part of Nadal's genius

But I do think that his team and his people probably are putting... Those great players that have preceded Alcaraz up there for him to give him something to chase. People have different personalities. Maybe they fear if he doesn't have that, then he'll take his eye off the ball. But it can be heavy, such a heavy thing to think about. And I remember just recently we watched his...

his press conference in Barcelona after he lost. He'd won Monte Carlo and he started talking about Nadal and he goes, you know, we can really... begin to appreciate how amazing it was that Rafa could do this back to back to back because we're trying to do it ourselves now. We can feel it. We can feel how heavy that is. And Carlos is still a young man. He's going to go through a lot of different changes, but he's a very different personality type than Nadal.

So he's going to have to find his own way. But I don't think sticking 14 up on the wall in front of him every day is going to be the way to make him get the best out of himself. It could demoralize him.

Yeah, I feel the same. A couple of final points relating to the book, your book, and maybe your future book. We've had The Master. We've had The Warrior. There's only one player of the big three remaining. And you've spoken to me about Novak Djokovic before and how... He might be the most interesting of the lot to one day write a book about. Matt Roberts, my co-host and I, one of my co-hosts, we were sort of speculating about what your title for that would be.

today and my suggestion was the Enigma and I think Matt wins though with the Disruptor But anyway, what do you think about the future? I mean, do you think there is a Novak Djokovic book in your future? Well, our colleague, Mark Johnson, just did a nice book, Searching for Novak. It's done very well and has come out. It's kind of the exploration of Djokovic's psyche.

and his success i'm sure there will be others i know there's a documentary in the works as well coming out so i don't i don't want to uh I don't want to plow the same field that I've plowed before. So if I can find the right format, as I did, I hope for the Nadal book, that's going to make it a challenge for me and hopefully fresh for the readers. then I would certainly be tempted, but I'm not going to force it.

I'm not going to go for the winner too early in the rally. I'm going to try my best to let it recover from this. This has been a big challenge to get this out there. I'd like to really think it through and find the right format because I think you and I discussed this last time we talked about books. That was a big revelation for me, David. how different it was. I thought it would be kind of like writing a lot of print articles.

back to back when you write a book. It's not like that at all. It's a whole different thing, a whole different mental challenge. and honestly a kind of a whole different physical challenge just having the endurance as well to do it and to go through all the material and come up with the right approach and sustain it not something i was used to doing so i found it very challenging gratifying but challenging

So I think you have to have the right structure, really a good structure to make a book good. You have to be able to... not only hold your reader's interest but your own interest and if your structure isn't solid and it isn't good it's it's going to fall apart it's going to lose its uh its mojo along the way probably more early than late Well, if I may, I think you have found the right structure with the Warrior, and I love it.

going all the way through it. And I read the whole thing in a weekend and I'm sure many, many of our listeners will want to do the same thing and I can't recommend it more.

highly to any of you who are listening to this to to go and seek out chris's book the warrior just just as a final question chris aside from your You're a voracious reader. If you had one other tennis book to recommend to our audience that you've read in your lifetime, is there one that stands out?

I guess we could, obviously there are ones, you mentioned John Feinstein before, obviously there's so many people who've written good tennis books over the years, and there's Agassiz's Open, written with more endurance, his Ghost Rider. But I would go for a couple that aren't quite as well known. And honestly, one of the books that I've enjoyed the most was A Terrible Splendor.

by Marshall Fisher about Gottfried von Kram and Don Budge and their rivalry, which really explores their personalities, but also the history of that time, which was such a fraught time in history with World War II. looming and all the rest of it. And I just, he captures that moment and that rivalry, but also that period of history beautifully. And I really, really enjoyed Jerry Marzerotti's meditation on

Late middle age and coming to tennis is kind of a metaphor for life and the learning curve. It's called Late to the Ball. Came out a few years ago. Jerry's a wonderful writer. huge fan of tennis passionate player recreationally and he really it's a book i think anybody a little bit later in life would benefit from reading whether you play tennis or not because it offers a template for

I think finding meaning at that stage of your life and antennas is his vehicle and he does a great job of explaining it. So those are two that come to mind right off the bat. Well, that's fantastic, Chris. And I should say that I didn't set you up to reference Gottfried von Kram, who will be a subject of the next edition of Tennis Relived from us here on the Tennis Podcast. Matt Roberts has been...

tenaciously researching Gottfried von Kramm for that edition in the Wimbledon Library, which will be out just before Roland Garros here in 2025. But Chris... It's your book that we've been covering on this edition of the tennis podcast. It's been a book that I've, I've really enjoyed reading and, uh, I hope you will now be able to sit back a little bit and enjoy the fact that you got this out there and that you achieved your goal. It's quite something.

Well, I appreciate that, David. And I appreciate your approach to what you're doing. And I think that's great that you're delving so often into the history of the game. And I got to tell you, that was a part of it that I enjoyed the most in doing this book. I was digging back not only into the history of Nadal and Spanish tennis, but the history of this place, Roland Garros, that I thought I knew, but I guess I really didn't know, and all the different elements of it over the years.

it's a really uh it's a deep well and it's fun that you guys are able to dip into it so bravo to you for that as well Thank you, Chris. Well, we can't wait a bit. Roland Garros will be there in just a couple of weeks' time bringing you nightly editions of the Tennis Podcast from the grounds of Roland Garros. Chris, thanks very much. All the best.