Tennis Hits the Books
I regularly consult list of the best selling tennis books on amazon. Rafa, an autobiography of Rafael Nadal with John Carlin, currently sits at #8 on that list. It’s really #6 because The Inner Game of Tennis and Andre Agassi’s Open each appear twice above that spot.
As I have mentioned before, I am not particularly interested in sports biographies of current active players. Their stories simply are not yet complete. A good biography needs space, time, and the benefit of hindsight. It is challenging to put things into historical perspective in the moment. Contemporaneous biographies tend toward marketing and public relations.
Rafa was first published in 2011. Turning back the clock, Nadal turned pro in 2001. At the ten year mark, it may have been reasonable to assume that his career might soon be waning. Fast forward to 2020 and it is now clear that that this book was published mid-career for Nadal.
From a historical perspective, Rafa provides a detailed summary of his life that lead Nadal into professional tennis. With so many televised matches, there is little in the backstory that would surprise most tennis enthusiasts. These early details have become requisite trope when commentating on one of Nadal’s matches.
From a literary perspective, it is impossible to ignore the strong parallels and influence of other works in the tennis genre. Levels of the Game by John McPhee was published in 1969. That book is a detailed account of a match between by Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner at Forest Hills in 1968. Interwoven within the description of the match is an examination of the backgrounds and attitude which shaped each player. It is widely regarded as a tennis literary masterpiece.
In 2008, Rafael Nadal played Roger Federer at the Wimbledon Finals which is regarded as one of the best matches of all time. Jon Wertheim wrote about that match in Strokes of Genius, a book which is very up front about the fact that it was written in the tradition of Levels of the Game. Strokes of Genius is likely to be a familiar title to most tennis fans, as the Tennis Channel aired a documentary based on the book in 2018.
Rafa was published in 2011 and also uses the 2008 Wimbledon final as an interwoven foreground for his life story. If there is published acknowledgement that the book was derived from or inspired by either Levels of the Game or Strokes of Genius, I have not happened upon it. Clearly it was influenced strongly by those two works. If Rafa wasn’t conceptualized at the outset as a Spanish Levels of the Game, it would be an amazing coincidence.
It is a sign of the times, that Rafa outsells the other two titles on amazon. It’s not even close. The picture on the cover of a shirtless smoldering Nadal probably doesn’t hurt the sales in the least bit. This is what the word has come to.
The question most relevant to this site is whether there is anything in the book that benefits a competitive tennis player. I was surprised to discover that the answer is a resounding yes. Nadal provides a first hand account of what he was thinking at various critical junctures of the matches relayed in this book.
The book is useful for a player who is interested in a deep dive into the psyche of playing with bravery and confidence. There are also valuable nuggets on how he developed his game over time as well as training.
Rafa is a classic case of the fact that you can’d judge a book by its cover. Until I read it, I was assuming that the lofty sales numbers were driven by rabid pop-culture Nadal fans. There is probably truth to that perception, but there was a surprising depth of competitive insight that makes it worth the read.
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