I always found it difficult to warm to Rafael Nadal. His prowess as a tennis player of enormous talent, one who is creative and destructive could never be disputed but the sheer mundane machinery of his game only brought my admiration, never my affection. His slowness in delivering a serve, and his now trademark tugging at his shorts copper fastened my detachment from team Rafa.
At least that is what I’ve been telling myself these past couple of years. For you see the reason I didn’t like Rafa was I was infatuated with Roger. He is the antidote to the Spaniard. A player of such regal grace and charm who represents and embellishes his sport like no other. If you want any proof of that don’t bother consulting the endless records, merely watch the latest Gillette advert where Roger is on his own, the last beacon of sporting morality with the dastardly Tiger presumably off somewhere with one of his disposable blades. He is the greatest of all time yet whenever he meets the devious Nadal on the court he is broken. That jarring sight of Federer’s tears drenching the courts of Melbourne eighteen months ago was a high point in my Nadal irritation. How dare he stop him from creating history? How dare he shatter my illusions of Fed’s invincibility?
It is that simple. It always is. It’s White or Hendry. Tiger or Phil. Ali or Frazier. Individual sports come down to how you perceive a player’s character and how you define their talent. Nadal, to Fed aficionados is a defensive player who relies on athleticism to win. While with each swish of his racket Federer creates a sonnet, Nadal’s stamina makes for a lousy stanza.
Well now I am down the middle. Watching Nadal destroy Robin Soderling yesterday I was struck by the range of ways in which he broke his opponent. I had lost my Fed tinted specs and could finally see what is blindly obvious, that my problem with the bull in the china shop was he smashed the prettiest plate. So join me Rafa-phobes in staying neutral for Wimbledon.
As long as Murray doesn’t win.
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