Why do elite tennis players put themselves through so much, with millions in the bank?
More pain than gain – why do the tennis superstars of the modern era find it so hard to leave the game?
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- Caroline Frost
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This week sees the eyes of tennis fans, along with the huge zoom lenses of sports photographers, swivel to the Roland-Garros stadium in Paris for the 125th French Open. Right on cue, it also sees the launch on Netflix of Rafa, a four-hour documentary series charting the mixed fortunes of the tournament’s greatest-ever champion, Rafael Nadal.
In this now rite-of-passage format for retiring sports stars, we follow the bashful Spaniard from child prodigy, through inspired coaching by Uncle Toni and onto 22 grand slam titles, including the singular glory of a record 14 French Open wins. No player, not even Bjorn Borg in SW19, has ever been so successful at one tournament.
Quite why the buff Mallorcan found his home on the clay isn’t fully explained. It can’t just be top spin, surely? Nor are there many surprises along the way, although we do learn the powerful left-hander is completely right-handed off the court, and that Rafa gets as irritated watching all his baseline tics as everyone else does.
Two aspects stand out, though, just as they did in the previous Andy Murray: Resurfacing and Federer: Twelve Final Days (both Prime Video): one, that the pain of retirement, long put off despite injury and recurring defeat, remains palpably raw. And two, that the proportion of sheer joy over a 20-year career is small against all the hours of graft, repetitive exercise, dietary discipline and, in Rafa’s case, decades of pain following foot surgery meant he always played with an insole in one plimsoll. Similarly, Murray shared the daily task of an ice bath, and the toll of hip arthritis. Even Roger Federer, injury-
free in his prime, saw his last decade blighted by right knee and back problems. His tears fell, too, when he announced his official farewell to the game in 2022, in a scene showing his whole entourage steeling themselves as though for a wake.
There has to be one final reward, or retiring means surrender
Why do these elite tennis players put themselves through so much that is gruelling, with millions in the bank and their young families to enjoy? I once interviewed Novak Djokovic and asked what his treat was if he won a match. His reply? “One slice of pizza” (presumably gluten-free).
We’ve come a long way from the days of Vitas Gerulaitis who, myth has it, went straight from a London nightclub to competing in a Wimbledon doubles final. I was an impressionable teenager when the tennis gods either shrieked at the umpire (John McEnroe), shouted back at the crowd (Jimmy Connors) or made the annual joke of playing cricket with a racket (Henri Leconte and everyone else). By contrast, this era has more prize money, more lucrative brands but, to quote my pal on leaving the cinema after watching the film The House of Mirth, “Hmm, not much mirth.” And yet, none of these superstars can bear to leave the arena that has taken so much from them, perhaps precisely because of that. There has to be one final reward, otherwise, as Rafa puts it, “When you say I’m retiring, you’re saying I surrender.”
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The sweetest revelation across all these tennis docs is the friendship between the best, hence more of Rafa’s tears when Roger signed off. If this were Ocean’s Eleven, Federer would obviously be George Clooney but all have their part to play: Federer’s balletic brilliance, Rafa’s never-say-die physicality, Murray’s slowly thawing charm, Djokovic’s eccentricity. And that bond must go a long way to explaining why all were still winning titles at nearer 40 than 30. Rafa admits as much: “If he’s doing it, why not me?” Turns out even tennis is a team sport. Now we just need Novak on Netflix to complete the set.
Authors
Caroline Frost
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