Shades of Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros

Dubai: In the spring of 2021, an 18-year-old qualifier, flaunting muscular arms in a navy tank, sparked Rafael Nadal vibes at Roland Garros. Some four year later, for the first French Open after Nadal’s retirement from the sport, Carlos Alcaraz strides into the Avenue Gordon-Bennett venue as defending champion, also displaying some of the legendary Spaniard’s compulsive obsessiveness when arranging bottles around his courtside seat.

There will be versions of Nadal – shoulder-length tresses, knickerbocker shorts, cut-off tees and fashion statement bandanas charging across this ochre-soaked landscape – in the years to come. But another Nadal? Like the one that burst onto tennis consciousness 20-years-ago in acid green cut-offs to claim the first of his 14 Coupe des Mousquetaires trophies on his tournament debut…. there is but one Eiffel Tower.

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Iga Swiatek, the four-time Roland Garros champion, who is on her shakiest run on the surface since she first triumphed here in 2020, comes into the second major of the year without a tournament win in the first five months of the season.

The Pole, who strikes a Nadalesque forehand (using a western grip in contrast to Nadal's semi-western) is a huge admirer of Le Empereur. Swiatek was in the stands when Nadal rallied from a two-set deficit to claim his 21st major title at the Australian Open three years ago.



“It was really inspiring,” Swiatek said then of the Melbourne Park final, where Daniil Medvedev had the veteran Nadal in wraps early in the match. “I thought it's going to be pretty hard for Rafa to get the score around. I was thinking during the match that if he's going to win it's going to be mind-blowing, he's going to show why he's Rafa, why he won so many Grand Slams.”

Nadal’s nerve is perhaps what Swiatek will look to replicate as she kicks off her seventh French Open campaign, where on Sunday, the opening day of the clay court fortnight, a ceremony in honour of Nadal will play out on Court Philippe Chatrier.

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“I really want to watch it,” Swiatek said of the ceremony, “For sure I'm going to cry. We should all kind of get together and celebrate Rafa and what he did for our sport, what kind of inspiration he was and still is.”

World No.1 Jannik Sinner reeled off Nadal’s strengths on the surface like a school boy reciting mathematical tables he had painstakingly drilled into his head – court coverage, court position, spin, physical shape…

“He deserves an amazing ceremony, not only because of the player he is, but also how he behaved on court. Being humble and being a successful tennis player, he showed that this is possible,” the 23-year-old Italian said. “I was lucky to know him a little bit better. He's exactly how you guys see him. He's not faking anything. A role model for all of us.”



British world No.5 Jack Draper, who like Nadal, plays tennis with his left hand, but writes with his right hand, has carved a solidity into his two-handed backhand, where the right hand steers the stroke.“Obviously (when) playing a righty, we're able to get it into their backhands more,” Draper said of the strategy Nadal employed against Roger Federer. “For me my biggest strength is probably the fact that I’m naturally right-handed. My backhand is a shot which I've always been really confident on. So when right-handers go to my backhand it feels like a great shot for me.”

On these picturesque courts, there will be shades of Nadal in the next couple of weeks and beyond --- the spin, the technique, the forehand and the fire -- but that indefatigable spirit -- the 22-time major winner’s shot that made the impossible possible is his signature. Unalloyed steel.


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