After a lengthy absence, Rafael Nadal is back, both at the top of his game and playing in Abu Dhabi, with an electric, eclectic arsenal that is more gripping than ever.
He is again the undisputed world No 1, a player who continually wows observers with his startling array of practised, tactical and crisply executed moves. At times, it feels like a triumph of choreography. Some might even call it a clinical exhibition.
Moreover, Nadal is impressive during live action, too.
After missing last year’s event, Nadal begins play on Friday night in the Mubadala World Tennis Championship, where he is a two-time winner. A packed house of approximately 5,000 will file into the Zayed Sports City tennis venue to watch the most riveting player in tennis, if not all of sport.
Behold Nadal, the man who puts the tic in ticket.
Already at the top of his craft with 13 grand slam titles, and coming off a transcendent, 10-win season in which he put a seven-month battle with a balky knee behind him, Nadal is more watchable than ever. We are not necessarily talking about ground strokes or footwork – unless his personal imperative to step across baselines and sidelines, always right-foot first, is the topic of discussion.
Rarely has an elite player been more interesting between the shots, if not between the ears.
What began as a handful of peculiarities has grown into a list of habits that is difficult to catalogue. A few months back, ESPN listed some of his pre-serve compulsions, and stopped at 12.
An Australian paper identified 20 on-court rituals. There was little overlap between the lists.
“Athletes are taught that routines are important,” said Dr Gio Valiante, a sports psychologist and author in the United States. “But don’t forget that a rut is nothing but a bad routine.”
At what point do rites become wrongs?
The Spaniard, 27, is a winning machine, a career grand slam winner, yet as the victories have piled up, so have the quirks. It begins with a cold shower, 45 minutes before every match. The foibles then are carried onto the court, packed like the multiple rackets in his bag, for full view.
“He has told me before he can stop doing them,” his uncle and coach, Toni Nadal, told a Spanish website, “and I have told him to do it.”
As the fidgeting continues, it is easy to understand how a player could fall into the comfort of routine. Sport is all about repeating physical patterns and finding the proverbial groove.
What was noticed years ago as a single, particularly odd habit – Nadal must pick at the back of his shorts before every shot – has become a laundry list that is almost impossible to recite.
“That is something I am doing all my career,” the Spaniard said of his undershorts, “something I cannot control.”
That phrase says it all, really. Some experts say rituals are a way to establish some sense of familiarity, if not outright domain, regarding the uncontrollable. Few occupations have more high-stress variables than a sporting event.
From the weather conditions, to the mood of the chair umpire, to the degree of execution by their opponent, sport is an unscripted drama conducted in a fishbowl.
Routines are often an illusion of order, a degree of compartmental management, over the proceedings. Ever-evolving, Nadal’s indulgences seem to work.
Between points in particular, he seem to be strung more tightly than his racket, with folded towels positioned across his knees just so and two water bottles carefully positioned between his feet. He is fastidious.
While Nadal goes through a 30-second checklist of ingrained habits before every serve, including pulling the hair over both ears while touching his nose in between, plus knocking the dirt from his shoes and adjusting both shirtsleeves in an arranged order, the real oddities begin during the changeover.
Parked in his courtside chair, it is fair to question whether Nadal is in control of his rituals, or whether they are controlling him. Two bottles of water, labels facing the court, are placed between his shoes, which are tied in regimented fashion and worn over socks that are incessantly adjusted to exactly the same height. A fresh headband, crisply folded and retrieved from a plastic bag, is tied into place.
The water bottle on the left must be placed a few inches in front of the one on the right. One contains warm water, the other cold. He takes a sip from each, and quite deliberately replaces each bottle in the same sweat ring on the court, adjusting their position to within a fraction of an inch. He once was overheard warning a ball boy, “Don’t touch the water.”
Earlier this year in Monaco, opponent Marinko Matosevic intentionally knocked over Nadal’s bottles, though Nadal merely laughed and shrugged. Probably a good sign. No sense being manic about it. Of course, moments later, he repositioned the bottles.
When it is time to start playing again, Nadal waits until his opponent stands first, then avoids walking on the court lines, stepping across the stripes with his right foot first, even if it means breaking stride.
On YouTube, a fan chronicled five Nadal quirks taking place, in rapid succession, solely as he walked onto the court.
It has become a parade of unavoidable twitches.
“He will tell you what you want, but I am zero obsessive,” Toni Nadal said in the Spanish interview.
“At first I didn’t mind, but a player who puts bottles in line with the court and will not step on lines is obsessive.”
Whether it has become a disorder is a clinical call, but the oddities have begun to carry over into his personal life, which is often the point when red flags start climbing therapeutic flagpoles for some, Valiante said.
Nadal has been seen hopping through hotel lobbies, careful to avoid stepping on cracks in the tile. Earlier this year, when he won the US Open, he reportedly ate at the same New York restaurant every night he wasn’t playing. Not only that, he ordered the same meal.
“A routine is not always a habit of excellence,” Valiante said. “It can be an addiction. There is no clinical line. It depends on what people in your life are willing to tolerate.”
Perhaps Nadal is an artiste who is merely expressing himself, both eccentrically and successfully, through a different prism.
After all, Pablo Picasso, who often avoided straight lines, was a Spaniard, too.
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