Rafael Nadal triumphs in grand theatre of artists

Imagine tennis as an art form. Think of athletes as men and women committed to
creativity. Think of them as dancers who swirl in dazzling arcs, as painters who flourish
their racquets as if they were brushstrokes, as writers who construct rallies and games
as if they were composing a sentence. Watch them hold their pose after feathering a
delectable volley, like models revealing their inner selves to a master painter. Listen
carefully to their bestial grunts: guttural pronouncements that convey agony and
desperation, fatigue and exasperation, misery and triumph.

Look at Roger Federer. Does he not transport you into a theatre where virtuoso ballet
artists perform The Nutcracker? As one fluid movement leads to another, the feet
floating across the court, do Federer’s rallies not beg to be set to Tchaikovsky? Can you
take your eyes off the screen when a symphonic Federer zig and zag – an inside out
forehand whip from the baseline and a delicate low forehand pick-up from the middle of
the court – leads to a tantalizing backhand volley two feet from the net?

Don’t you flinch when that same volley smashes into the net? Has beauty been
compromised? Has the dancer on stage lost his footing and broken the entire troupe’s
rhythm? Did you endure forty six such agonizing moments during Federer’s semi-final
in the French Open, one for every unforced error? Did a great premier danseur noble
combust amid a slew of elementary mistakes? Has age and the emergence of two other
revolutionary artists consumed the most beautiful artiste of all?

Take Rafael Nadal. Look at him when he embarks on his crusade on the tennis
court. Here is an epic mythic drama unfolding in front of our eyes. Human suffering
accompanies every point and invokes in us, what Friedrich Nietzshe called, the two-
fold mood: a phenomenon whereby pain awakens pleasure. There’s a heroic tragedy to
parts of Nadal’s game, a tragedy that is borne out of his desire to stretch and reach for
every ball, to strike every shot as if it were his last, to win every point of every game of
every set. There is nothing easy about his mission. There will be pain, he seems to tell
us, but that pain will gradually transform into wonder, which will eventually turn to joy.

Watch Nadal, in his quest for his seventh title on the red earth at Roland
Garros, in the early stages of the French Open final. Notice him dashing around the
court like a hyperactive weevil in a granary. Here he is curving a forehand to the ad
court, there he is sliding towards the net and retrieving a drop shot inches before it
bounces again; here he is smashing an overhead backhand even as he is thrown off balance, there he is running back to salvage a pass. Hardly have we begun to applaud a winner from his opponent than Nadal throws an extreme lunge and brings the ball back into play.

It is harsh to say Nadal ‘loses’ a tennis point. This is no loser. Here is a hero whose
mission in life is to vanquish one impossible task after the next. To win a point against
Nadal requires one to ruin oneself. To win a point against Nadal is to be out of breath
and stretched to the limit. To win a point against Nadal is to concede the possibility
of going down in the subsequent three points. To win a point against Nadal could be
nothing but a pyrrhic victory. The ramifications are often too large.

Nadal takes the first set 6-4. Then he takes the second set 6-3.

At the other end of the net is Novak Djokovic. Consider him. Watch as he aims to
become only the third man in history to win four straight majors on the bounce. What
do you see? He is writing a mind-bending Kafkaesque novel that does not follow established narrative conventions. He brutalizes the ball, then pulls out a delicate lob, then smashes a pass down the line, then caresses a volley. Fury and love, love and fury.

He wails in frustration after swinging one into the net and clatters his racquet against the
Perrier sign below his seat. He also concedes a point to Nadal after a wrong line call, a
magnanimous gesture that his opponent acknowledges. Fury and love, love and fury.

Djokovic messes with your head with his labyrinthine plot for the match. For the first two sets, his storyline is tinged with melancholia, an almost inevitable descent from glory to anguish, a fall of an upstart monarch.

Then comes the twist, a post-apocalyptic vision that leaves you cold.  Down 0-2 in the third set, four games away from a crushing defeat, Djokovic, a beleaguered, spent leader anticipating a coup d’état, instigates a revolution that could to lead us into a dystopian future.

Here’s a sneak peek of the new theme. The world will be a safe place to live in until the
day someone picks on Djokovic and threatens to finish him off. That’s when he will turn
into a leviathan beast and annihilate anyone in sight. He will not feel pain. Neither will
he feel remorse. The man will turn into an unconquerable machine.

Djokovic is 0-2 down in the third. Then he takes eight games in a row. Forehands turn into grenades. Fatigue gives way to a focussed rage. He wins a 44-stroke rally in the first
game of the fourth set. Nobody in their right minds would even consider something as
audacious against Nadal on clay.

There are no more frustrated cries, no visible anger, just a man who has been inspired
by the sight of defeat, an anti-choker who has been vitalized by the possibility of being
beaten. Some people fear success. Djokovic, it seems, waits for failure to approach
within touching distance. Then he proceeds to confront the beast and establish his
supremacy.

The anti-choke defies conventional sporting notions like ‘momentum’. In the Djokovic
manual, winning points does not feed into winning more points. Instead victory emerges
from danger, from threat. He needs to be led to the edge of a cliff. Then he flies.

A persistent drizzle seems to neutralize Nadal’s top-spin. Djokovic’s groundstrokes get
nastier and nastier. He has pulled off an anti-choke heist in the US Open semi-final last year (notable for his outrageous forehand return to save match point against Federer) and in the US Open semi-final in 2010 (again against Federer).  He did it again a few days ago, in the quarter-final against the local favorite Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, when he staved off four match points and partisan crowd.

The heavens intervene. Even they cannot handle how the futuristic ogre is pummeling
the Greek hero.

The past and present continue their battle on Monday. The Greek drama returns with
an emphatic few scenes. Nadal breaks early. The Kafkaesque novel tries to match it
for intensity. Djokovic finds his strong serve. They brave persistent drizzles and leaden
skies – the kind that one associates with the hellenic wars. Then the sun comes out.
Nadal swirls his vicious top-spun forehands; Djokovic blasts back slapped returns.

It’s 5-5 in the fourth set. Then Nadal holds for 6-5. A wayward forehand from Djokovic
gets it to 30-30. Nadal seizes the moment. He rips a forehand that spins away. Then he
confronts championship point.

Djokovic faults. He faults again. A game that has twisted and turned ends in anti-climax.
Nadal drops to the earth. No other man has won seven French Open titles. No other
man is likely to attempt it. History watches on. Gunshots rend the air. A bugle plays a
memorable tune. The curtain falls.

“I suffered,” Nadal says at the end, “but I enjoyed.”

The ballet, the Greek drama and the Kafkaesque novel will be showcased again in two weeks, this time on the manicured lawns of Wimbledon. It promises to be a grand exhibition of beauty, pain and shock. Stretching our imagination will be three artists who continue to elevate their sport to a higher plane.

From the archives: Rafael Nadal and the crusade against the ‘impossible’; Novak Djokovic: chutzpah, endurance and a US Open; Federer, Nadal and an obsession restored