65 years ago, the writer Michael End invented one of the most charming literary characters: the sham giant. He looks huge and terrifying from afar, but viewed from close up, he turns out to be normal and friendly. In real life there are other exceptional figures, in which it is conversely to Mr. Tur Tur from Lummerland: The closer you get to them, the more survival greater, colossal, more powerful. Rafael Nadal, for example, was the time of his career on sand fields, the closer you came. Especially in Paris, the Spaniard left other sports greats such as Federer, Djokovic, Wawrinka or Thiem like tennis gnomes. Verlag Edel Sports, 2025, 416 pages, 24.99 euros. Verlag Edel Sportnadal, inherently grown to 185 centimeters and undoubtedly the best on brick -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -flour -float tennis courts, already made many opponents slotters when he completed his warm -up program in the stadium catacombs. Mallorquiner with his short sprints along the passage and his extensive exercises. The Spanish Matador El Cordobés, who watched his compatriot in the French Open semi-final in 2008 from a safe distance from the stands, said: “I have already seen a few wild bulls, but he scares me.” Each endgame, he has woned statue that was built in 2021 on the Roland-Garros tennis facility “only” three meters. Even if sports policy calculus played in: that Nadal was already receiving such a monument during his professional career and then as a non-French, testifies to its monstrous importance. The Spaniard won each of his endgames on the Paris Court Chatrier, lost only four of his 116 matches in Roland Garros between his debut in 2005 and the end of the car. published biography “Rafael Nadal – The Sympics King”. And further: “For me, this is the most impressive statistics of his career, the unmistakable sign of a true champion that not only had the necessary perseverance, but was also able to drive himself to top performance if he needed it the most.” External content activate how Nadal has succeeded and why, especially on sand, is one of the central questions that the former tennis ponder of the “New York Times” follows in his work full of current insights, historical derivations and amusing anecdotes. For example, that of Nicolas Almagro, who frustrates his trainer in the middle of the quarter -final match against his 22 -year -old compatriot Nadal: “He will still win at 65.” As is well known, it will no longer happen. In addition, it is Nadal, unlike Djokovic. Although he inspires the achievements of LeBron James, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and is “fan of them”. With his life, however, he is happy: “I do not need this wish or this mania to achieve even more.” Señor Nadal’s sense for sand oversets and rituals of the 22-time Grand Slam champion, which everyone calls “Rafa”, has already been written: the plucking around the pants, the structure of the bottles in front of the bench, the initial problems with the English language and so on. But Señor Nadal’s sense of sand beats everything. As Clarey writes, Nadal always took a pinch of brick flour from the ground before the tournament begins, grabbed it between the fingers and tested the graininess to get a feeling for the space properties. Many victories, so many titles, so many titles: Rafael Nadal dominated in Roland Garros.Fapraining units Nadal in Paris occasionally because he occasionally Smaller recognized a bit too much sand. Nobody knew better than the Spaniard. He never worked as lightly as his rival Roger Federer, writes Clarey about Nadal’s choreography of the slip, in which absolute muscle control, precision and timing is important: “But in Nadal’s predator style there was a very special, majestic way.” His strokes did the rest; Above all, his forehand, beaten with more spin than any other and steeply over his head with a swing. Clarey believes that scary, but not like the textbook: “She looked more craftsmanship than machine, rather rough than elegant.” Based on his forehand, Nadal’s way of playing always remained the same: thanks to his top-spin blows, he pushed the opponents behind the baseline, lurked on a defensive strike that got too short or too unplaced, and then lurked the ball for the ears. Great tennis for all of the secrets behind the blows of the stars “You know, but nothing can be done about it,” says Clarey to the former French professional Gilles Simon. Against the end of the career, Nadal tried to end rallies faster by moving to the net more often and looking for the profit in the past. Especially since Djokovic, with external help, noticed at some point that the Spaniard on the forehand side was more vulnerable than expected. Much more that Nadal identified as a tennis professional explains Clarey in detail: his incentive, his resilience, the importance of his coaching on Toni and the entire Nadal clan. Even the dark sides are not neglected: the shindly sluder, the “Rafa” drove with his body, the relationship with Djokovic, which was cooled during the Corona pandemic, the doping rumors that were spread by French media. The suspicions led to faults between Nadal and the French as well as the occasional hostility of the Parisian audience, which was bored by the Spaniard’s winning streak and preferred to see his opponent. The work is a monstrumCLAREY more than the success and injury from Nadal’s autobiography from 2011 and enriched with external expertise. In a sense, the work of the renowned sports journalist himself is a monster: Clarey tells a lot about Nadal’s career, which has to do with the history of the clay plated, the history of the French tennis championships, the expansion of the layout of Roland-Garros and even his own way of life, everything is well researched and educational, but sometimes somewhat constructed. Apparently the author himself suspected that his latest work reads less from one cast than his Federer biography, which was published four years ago. “If you write about Nadal, you have the feeling that you have to feel the effort physically, the burning, while you struggle up the brick stone story and occasionally pluck on your jogging pants so that it runs around the laptop.” This effort does not escape the reader. Nevertheless, it has become a big book about a giant.
