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Home , Boris Becker, Guillermo Coria, Lleyton Hewitt, Michael Chang, Rafael Nadal, Toni Nadal

Nadal Proves He's Leader of the New Wave in Men's

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

Published: April 20, 2005

MONACO, April 18 - It would have been entirely logical if had grown up to be a precocious soccer star. As a child, he was a promising striker, and soccer remains the sport of the masses in and on Nadal's home island of Majorca. He also had an excellent role model in the family, his uncle Miguel Angel Nadal, a fine defender with an imposing physique; he was a fixture on the Spanish national soccer team and had a long, successful club career before retiring this year. But at age 12, Rafael Nadal chose a different game, and tennis will never be the same because of it. He has yet to match the early work of prodigies like Bjorn Borg, , , Michael or , who all won singles titles as teenagers. But at 18, Nadal is already making a habit of winning tournaments, and when the begins May 23 at Roland Garros stadium in Paris, he will be on the very short list of favorites - if he can stay healthy this time. "I am not the favorite," Nadal said. "It is going to be my first Roland Garros. But right now I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about the next few tournaments in , Rome and Hamburg, and I'd love to play very well. And only after that am I going to think about Roland Garros." He played very well last week. He picked and hustled through a varied and daunting draw to win the Masters Series event in Monte Carlo. On his way to the title, Nadal defeated clay-court masters like Gaston Gaudio, the defending French Open champion, and , last year's French Open runner-up. He also reminded other members of the new wave in tennis that he remains the leader of their peer group by defeating 18-year-olds Gael Monfils and , both from France. But watching him whip bold shots and track down the best efforts of others is, for the moment, one of the better spectacles in sports. During a week of mourning the death of Prince Rainier III, Nadal's vitality in was an upbeat counterpoint on the red clay that best suits his slashing and great footwork. But clay is hardly the only surface that suits him. On grass, Nadal reached the third round at Wimbledon in 2003, just after he turned 17. On hard courts, he pushed of to five sets in the fourth round of Open in January, then was 2 points away from beating , the world's No. 1 player, in the final of the Masters Series event April 3 in Key Biscayne, Fla. He has also won critical matches for Spain on quick indoor surfaces. Though his remains a work in progress, such versatility was part of the plan when another of Nadal's uncles, Toni, taught him the game in Majorca. He insisted that Rafael polish his all-court skills in junior tournaments by rushing the net, even though he could have beaten the opposition more handily by camping on the baseline. Toni, who remains his coach, is one of the reasons Rafael picked tennis over soccer. Toni is the brother of Miguel Angel and of Rafael's father, Sebastian, and was a competitive tennis player who had some success on the national level in Spain. Rafael was 3 when he first hit balls with him in Majorca. "When he was 4 and 5, he would come two days a week to the club to play, but he always preferred soccer," Toni said. "Until he was 12, he played more soccer than tennis." By then, he had won Spanish and European tennis titles in his age group, Toni said, adding: "It was clear that he had great talent, but it was still a difficult choice. His father said he needed to make a commitment to his studies and to either soccer or tennis." Carlos Moya, also a Majorcan, had already proved it was possible to make it big, winning the French Open in 1998 and becoming the first Spaniard to reach No. 1 in the world the next year. Moya, who is 10 years older than Nadal, left Majorca as a teenager to train in Barcelona, the hub of Spanish tennis. Nadal was 14 when the Spanish tennis federation suggested he make the same move. But his parents balked, partly because they wanted to stay involved in his education. Remaining in Majorca meant that Nadal received less financial support from the federation, but his father, a successful businessman who owns a window company, was prepared to pay for his training. "His father just felt it was the best decision for Rafael to stay home, surrounded by his family with people to back him up," said. "When you're young and you leave home, the tennis can go well, but as a person, it doesn't always go well. We had problems at times with the training, finding the same level of players as Rafael. But with hard work we managed it." In 2002, Nadal was just 15 when he beat the Paraguayan veteran Ramon Delgado in the opening round of the ATP event in Majorca. A year later, he was ranked in the top 50 in the world, and by 2004, he and Moya were the leaders of the Spanish Davis Cup team that defeated the in the final in front of record crowds in Seville. The only storm clouds have been injuries. The most serious was a stress fracture in his left ankle last year that kept him off the Tour for nearly three months. It also forced him to miss nearly all of the 2004 clay-court season, including the French Open. "Of course that's been hard for me, because I had high hopes of doing well there," Nadal said. "Those are tough moments, but you have to keep working and staying positive, so when your time does come, you're prepared." He looked thoroughly prepared in Monte Carlo, and he has a heavy schedule, including an opening-round match in Barcelona on Wednesday. It would be wise to prepare for something special in Paris, too.