‘The Warrior' Review: The King of Roland Garros
Writing about sports is an art—complete with its own conventions and clichés. At its best, it can sound like this: 'Clay is to [Rafael] Nadal what water is to Michael Phelps or midair is to Simone Biles: a natural habitat suited to serial success. Clay was paradoxically not Nadal's favorite surface in his youth, but it was and will forever remain his best surface.'
That's a passage from Christopher Clarey's 'The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay.' It's a scintillating account of the elastic Spaniard's epic run to the pinnacle of men's professional tennis—a 23-year career in which he won 92 titles on the pro tour, among them 14 on clay at the French Open, six on hard courts at the U.S. and Australian Opens, and two more on Wimbledon's fabled grass center court. Still, Mr. Nadal trails Jimmy Connors, who won 109, and Roger Federer, at 103.
Mr. Clarey, a former sports reporter for the New York Times and the author of a biography of Mr. Federer, is especially good at analyzing Mr. Nadal's prodigious shot-making skills:
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