MELBOURNE, Australia – Unbeaten on the ground, Rafael Nadal extended his dominance on all surfaces with his steely mentality and resilience to injury, winning his 21st Grand Slam record at the Australian Open on Sunday.

The Spaniard with thirteen victories at Roland-Garros crushed the ocher competition for almost twenty years, but reducing his palette to this color would be wrong. At Melbourne’s hard court, he has only won twice, but he has one of the best win / loss ratios.

His title on Sunday allows him not only to overtake rivals Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic (20 Majors each), but also to become the second player in the Open season (since 1968) to win at least twice each of the four Grand Slam tournaments. after Djokovic.

With 90 trophies, the No. 1 spot in the world for 209 weeks, four Davis Cups and two Olympic gold medals, both singles and doubles, has the richest list of awards at 35, with that of Djokovic and Federer.

He places more than two of his victories on the grass at Wimbledon in 2008 and 2010, especially the first, which he won in a legendary match against the Swiss champion, co-author with him of one of the most exciting soap operas in the history of the sport. .

It was in the clay, the slowest and most demanding ground for the head and feet, that his art reached its perfection. For more than a decade, from April to June, it was almost unbeaten thanks to its huge rise and slides: 395 games won out of 430 played, almost 92% success.

His Parisian triumphs, from 2005 to 2008, from 2010 to 2014 and from 2017 to 2020, were his masterpieces. No champion has ever won the same Grand Slam tournament so often.

No one has ever won 81 consecutive dirt games, a record set between April 2005 and May 2007, nor has it stacked 62 titles on that surface.

battle beast

This love for red was written on his birth certificate. In Mallorca, as in Spain in general, tennis has long been considered a sport that must be practiced exclusively on clay.

Born of a merchant mother and a business manager father in Manacor, the third island city to which he remains passionately attached, Nadal spent his childhood in a building where his entire family lived. Or rather, his race, as a Mediterranean spirit, united its members (in this respect, the separation of his parents, in 2009, was a serious ordeal).

His uncles were crucial: Miguel Ναngel Nadal, the Barcelona footballer who made him realize the demands of professional sports at a very young age, and above all Tony, his mentor from the age of 4 to 2018 (when compatriot and friend Carlos Moya took over).

Under the rule of this coach, “the strictest one can imagine”, the little miracle sweated with blood and water in the tennis club just opposite the family home. “He put a lot of pressure on me, he used harsh language, he shouted often. “I was afraid of him,” says the player.

According to Toni, it was the price he had to pay to turn a rather shy and frightened boy into a fighting beast on the field. And also as a gentleman: “absolute ban on throwing your racket”.

“Immersed in his tennis”

Less technically gifted than Federer (even though we should not underestimate the ability of his left foot, which he only uses to play tennis, being right-handed), he triumphed thanks to his mentality, this ability to accept difficulties and he surpasses that of most (of his) opponents “, he says, and his exceptional forces of concentration, when” he is completely immersed in (his) tennis alone, with a strong sense of life “.

Nadal is also an athlete who “combines extreme endurance with high speed, like a buzzing bird,” according to his trainer.

But his body was often his worst enemy. As early as 2006, he thought he had been missing due to a congenital foot defect that forced him to wear custom-made shoes. Then knee and wrist problems kept him off the field for long periods of time.

This extremely rich (over $ 125 million in profits, not including advertising revenue) and celebrity describes himself as an ordinary guy who enjoys nothing more than fishing with his friends while watching football matches. – who preferred tennis as a child – and spent time with his wife Francesca, a Mallorcan whose life he has shared since 2005.