Rafa Nadal - Linking to the Past

I'm still getting through my thoughts about Nadal as a whole, but what's an interesting area I wanted to highlight is just the amount of times I wrote about him. Purely him. Yes, I've written a ton about Peyton Manning, or others, but given tennis is an individual sport, a lot of pieces were truly just about him. This came to me when reposting the "22 memories" article, in that there's a good number of those where I wrote a whole piece around that win. So, for my next Nadal retrospective I wanted to link back to those moments.

2008 Wimbledon - Nostalgia Diaries: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2019/05/nostalgia-diaries-pt-17-2008-wimbledon.html

This one is really memorable because I wrote about watching the match with my Aunt who would die a few months later (she was already quite ill), where I learned at that moment that she was not only a big Tennis fan but a Nadal fan. ALso of course it was the greatest match of all time.

2009 Australian Open - Nostalgia Diaries: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-nostalgia-diaries-pt-25-2009.html

His last title win before the start of the blog - a lot of talk here about the changing of the rivalry and the friendship between Nadal and Federer that started that day.

2010 French Open - The Changing of the (Swiss) Guard:  https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2010/06/there-is-man-in-switzerland-today-man.html

I;m honestly a bit sad I focused so much of Nadal's win here to be about the demise of the reign of Federer. Of course, that was largely true - this was Nadal's 7th slam, and since then Nadal would win 15 more and Federer just four more.

2010 US Open - The Reign of Rafa: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2010/09/reign-of-rafa.html

All about him being the undisputed king. Of course a fellow named Novak woudl rise up right after this, but at this moment Rafa's future seemed limitless. Of course even I probably wouldn't have thought the best case scenario would be thirteen more titles!

2014 French Open - Rafa Nadal - Reaching the Highest of Expectations:  https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2014/06/rafa-nadal-reaching-highest-of.html

I;m shocked I didn't write about the four wins in interim, especially during his dominant 2013 season. Oddly, I did write about him in August 2013, when he beat Djokovic in a stellar final in Toronto. Anyway, I did in 2014, the same time I made a bet with a friend that he would exceed Federer in slams. Of course, he wouldn't win for another three years. 

2017 French Open - La Decima: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2017/06/la-decima.html

As you'll see, I wrote about basically every slam win from here on out. Being Nadal, most are at teh French Open, and most are actually quite similar. All increasingly slack-jawed at Nadal's craziness of racking up titles at Rolland Garros.

2017 US Open - Rafa's Sweet 16: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2017/09/rafas-sweet-16.html

The win over Kevin Anderson was the most lowkey, easy final to watch. There was like zero chance he was losing. Allowed me to get a bit more introspective on teh career and what-not than the match itself. It was a lot about him winning a non-clay slam for the first time in four years.

2018 French Open - La Undecima de Nadal: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2018/06/la-undecima-de-nadal.html

Again, it's basically about "isn't it just crazy that we have a guy who has won eleven French Open titles!?" Also will say that the funniest part here is that I actually didn't watch a second of this Final - it taking place early with me being on the West Coast and it being basically a fait accompli that he was going to win.

2019 French Open - Rafa's Dozen: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2019/06/rafas-dozen.html

Broken record here - him winning a ludicrous twelfth Roland Garros. Let's just proceed.

2019 US Open - Watching Rafa: Emotionally Drained, Completely Energized:  https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2019/09/watching-rafa-emotionally-drained.html

This is probably my most introspective article about a single match. It isn't all that much about the career. About the chase of the all-time record (this brought him to within one of Federer). It was about that magical five hour match against Medvedev. Honestly, maybe my favorite piece I wrote about Nadal.

2020 French Open - Rafa: https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2020/10/rafa.html

Not sure why I went so simple with teh title. This was still during Covid. He throttled Djokovic, who clearly was nipping at his/Federer's heels at this point. It seemed more important at the time.

2022 Australian Open - Rafa Climbing the Mountain:   https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2022/02/rafa-climbing-mountain.html

If not the 2019 US Open one, this might be my favorite. For twelve years I was waiting to write this. For eight years I was financially wanting to write this (the bet with my friend). On the whole, it was a thrill to jsut be able to. Again, I'll always just love the fact that for a small moment in time, Rafa was alone at the top of the slam leaderboard.

2022 French Open - 14 for Rafa:  https://loungingpass.blogspot.com/2022/06/14-for-rafa.html

In the end, not a surprise this was the last one. For those that remember, there was some weird retirement talk during this tournament, largely squared around the resurfacing of a foot issue that first troubled him in 2006. A month later he would get hurt at Wimbledon, pulling out before his semifinal against Kyrgios. Obviously he came back, but was never really right, so in a way the weird retirement cloud at the time of the 2022 French Open makes this more poignant.