Fairly or unfairly, tennis memoirs in the forthcoming years will inevitably be compared to Andre Agassi's wonderful autobiography, Open. Rafa (written with John Carlin, who is perhaps most famous for writing the rugby book Playing the Enemy, which became the film Invictus) simply doesn't compare to Agassi's book for candor, introspection or breadth and it actually has much more in common with L. Jon Wertheim's 2009 book about the 2008 Wimbledon Final, Strokes of Genius. The first two thirds of Rafa are framed by this seminal match, with Nadal devoting a lot of time to describing the events of and surrounding this match, while interspersing details of his history and his family's fascinating dynamics. This could have worked; however, too much space is dedicated to an increasingly tedious play-by-play of the match, which is nowhere near insightful enough to compare to simply watching the match. Nadal describes his emotions very well and shows how they disrupted his game plan at inopportune moments, but I wish more of that had been included to balance out, or even replace, the multitude of play-by-play commentary. The final third of the book is similarly framed, but by the 2010 US Open Final. Unfortunately, it is written quite similarly. There is too much detailed description and it lacks in proportional candor and insight.
The framing technique would also have likely been more successful if the book flowed between subjects better. Nadal will use aspects of the matches to flash back and describe his upbringing. The portions about his upbringing and his family are fascinating and are easily the best portions of the book. However, far too soon, he transitions back to the Wimbledon or US Open match with a frustratingly clunky segue. One wonders if the book would have worked more seamlessly if it was simply a chronological story of his life and career through 2010. The way it's written, it gives short shrift to many other major parts of his career. As an example, for all the chapters and chapters focused on the Wimbledon match, he describes his Semifinal and Final wins over Roger Federer and Mariano Puerta, respectively, on the way to winning his first Grand Slam title at the 2005 French Open, literally in one paragraph. Wouldn't it have been more interesting to visit those tense, competitive and pivotal matches over the space of more than half a page, rather than rushing back to the Wimbledon Final at the earliest possible instance? John Carlin, in his own voice, tries to fill in some of the gaps that Nadal leaves out in between the chapters of the Spaniard's's narrative. However, Carlin's interjections, though often more piercing and shrewd than Nadal's narrative, are oddly timed. They sometimes seem to have little to do with what comes directly before or after. This lack of focus can make Rafa a somewhat frustrating read at times.
However, as mentioned above, there is a lot of great content here about the Nadal family and about Rafael's upbringing. Sure, some of the widely reported revelations (Nadal doesn't care for animals; he considered switching to golf a few years ago; he doesn't care for ham, etc.) are pretty entertaining, but what is truly absorbing is the author's unique relationship with his uncle and coach, Toni. Intentionally or not, Nadal depicts Toni Nadal as a very moody, manipulative, almost emotionally abusive figure. The player cites examples of disagreeing with something Toni says and Toni immediately threatening to quit the coaching job and head home. In other instances, Toni gives a specific time to meet at a practice court or for a meal and then shows up egregiously late by, perhaps, hours, but chastises Rafael for being fifteen minutes late to an appointment. Rafael's response to Toni's threat of desertion, in particular, is both charming and vexing in its understatement – "I wasn't thrilled at his reaction." Nadal admits that Toni's mere presence adds stress to his inner sanctum, but he believes, simply, that, "tension benefits my game."
Toni Nadal has been a direct contributing factor in many of his nephew's successes but also, seemingly, a source of constant stress and criticism. Nadal's view of his uncle is complex. He recognizes many of Toni's features that are quite obviously unreasonable and seemingly harmful, but it's interesting to notice how readily Nadal forgives, rationalizes and shrugs away what many would consider unacceptable treatment. It would be quite interesting if Rafael Nadal revisited this period in his life after his career is over, just to see how, or if, his views about his uncle evolve.
Rafa will not likely go down as a canonical sports memoir. Its shortcomings are too plentiful and conspicuous and its brevity and lack of comprehensiveness really prevent it from reaching the heights of some of the great memoirs that came before it. However, there is plenty here for tennis fans, especially Nadal fans, to chew on. Nadal is a man who is obviously very devoted to his family and he likewise devotes the most interesting chapters of his book to them and those sections are easily the most remarkable. One hopes that someday he will revisit this and write a memoir that dedicates that same attention and insight to his tennis career.
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Book cover image courtesy of Hyperion
