The Boy From the Red Stuff is Anything but Green
Richard Jago
Tuesday June 24, 2024
The Guardian
Not even Bjorn Borg heard predictions before his Wimbledon debut that he would become world No1. But Rafael Nadal, who already this year has taken the scalps of two former French Open champions, has had to cope with that. And yesterday the spectators were hanging off the stairways to watch him win a battle to determine who is the world's best teenage player.
Three weeks after his 17th birthday the Spanish prodigy won 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 against Mario Ancic, a 19-year-old Croatian, with a performance which was all the more remarkable for coming after a month off with an elbow injury and with less than three days' practice on a surface alien to him. "I really didn't expect to win this," he said. "It was my first match in any grand slam and at first I was nervous. But I wasn't too worried about playing on grass."
But Nadal doesn't often get too worried about things. "Caracter tranquilo" is how Albert Costa, his first major scalp, described him this year. Certainly Nadal, who was brought up playing on red clay, took to the green stuff yesterday as only a player with exceptional timing can. His passing shots frequently had Ancic plunging about, and when he had time to wind up on the forehand there was always trouble for his opponent.
"He is only young but he has all the strength he needs," says Carlos Moya, the former world No1 who has been his mentor. "He is a great player now. He's also more mature on court and off it than anyone else of his age."
He has had to be. The nephew of Miguel Angel, one of the most famous defenders in Spanish football, he has had to endure intense scrutiny from the moment he showed a glimmer of talent.
"Always I am asked if Miguel Angel gives me advice," he says. "No, he has never given me advice." The man who does is another uncle, Toni Nadal, a professional coach, who yesterday was able to pass on bits of discreet advice from a corner of Court Six without the umpire noticing.
But there was only one stage when that was necessary. Nadal lost the third set after a rare bad service game and went break-point down in the fourth, with a risk of the match slipping away. "Maximum concentration," called the uncle.
But the kid had that anyway. Ancic did not. He made his name with a spectacular Wimbledon debut of his own last year, beating one of the favourites, Roger Federer, and revealing some engagingly familiar characteristics which had him dubbed "Son of Goran".
Now there were more of them. Once he stared at the gully at the back of the court and grumbled, and you could imagine Ivanisevic sitting in it in mock despair. Later, when he served four double faults in eight points, he launched a mighty kick at his kitbag, and near the end he hurled his racket down and started screeching at it as though it might answer him back. But in between these tragi-comedies Ancic showed himself to have a formidable grass-court game, sometimes serving and volleying, sometimes driving his way in, sometimes chip-and-charging. And his volleying was at times exquisite.
Nadal, by contrast, usually came forward only when finishing off a point which had effectively already been won. Ominously, for Henman-watchers and those looking for signs of how Wimbledon's rye grass will play this year, this was the style which always looked likely to prevail.
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