It's How You Play the Game

When I got into tennis, it was the late 1990s and Venus Williams was beginning to run the show. I wasn’t just a fan, I was learning the game as well, so I tried to mimic what I saw in Venus and the top American women at the time – her sister Serena and Lindsay Davenport.  

This is why I don’t even count my first few years playing tennis as playing tennis. I was out of control, trying to swing ferociously like a professional who had been doing it forever and actually had sound technique to assist with that power. . I was strong and fast so it worked – if I was playing a complete beginner. Otherwise, it didn’t translate and I was getting beat by anyone who could make me hit more than two balls. The Williams sisters played first-strike tennis, and that was what I tried to do. 

It never occurred to me that there was another way to play tennis until I began watching Rafael Nadal Parera play. I’m not gonna lie – I came for that beautiful ass and stayed for his game style. 

Anyone who was a fan at that point knew that it was Roger Federer who was asserting himself as a great. Pete Sampras set the record for slams won and now no one talks about him because Roger was that dominant, that quickly. And then, Rafael Nadal beat him. How was it possible? Any real tennis fan would be unable to deny the beauty of Roger’s game. The backhand. The graceful movement. The way his face stayed so still when he was hitting. (That was freakish, honestly.) And that was sort of the personality of tennis – grace, class, beauty.  

But Nadal showed up in capris (for way too long, IMO. I mean, that worked for him but no one else. Believe me, I used to play with guys who dressed like Nadal during this time and it was like yikeys) and charged like a bull at every ball, he grunted, and he never stopped. He was relentless. And it’s not like he didn’t have power – he did. That lefty forehand down the line on the run?  

I became a huge Nadal fan, just rabid. And as I watched him grind people down to their gears, it finally clicked for me. I finally figured out that I had speed and was strong enough. All I had to do was stay in a point long enough to get the advantage in a point. I realized that there was more than one way to play tennis. Blasting winners from the baseline was not me, mostly because I was completely incapable. But getting to everything? Refusing to give up? Making someone hit another shot, and then being able to do it for an entire match, regardless of the result? Maybe!  

So I began to think like Rafa when I played. I still do. And it never gets old watching my opponents scramble after I got to a shot they thought I had no play on. I tried to be like Rafa – using my body to play defense when I needed to, but going for my chance when I had an opening. I think he’s a little better at it, even still. 

I’m saying that there’s more than one way to play tennis and if it weren’t for Rafael Nadal, I probably wouldn’t know that. Nobody hustled like Nadal on court in his prime, tracking down almost every ball, leaving opponents off-balance and chipping away at those opponents’ will to live.

There's a life lesson in there too. Rafa and Roger did a Louis Vuitton ad together a few months back and they were asked how they wanted to be remembered. "I achieved more than what I ever dreamed of," Rafa answered. Dreams happen when you're asleep. Achievements happen when you work unceasingly and Rafa made that literally true on the court every time he went out there.