Watching Rafa

Netflix recently released Rafa, and as any fanatical Nadal supporter, it was naturally on my list to watch. I finally caught up with it over a few nights and came away feeling extremely nostalgic. Having followed Nadal since 2007, it was a rush to relive his highest highs and lowest lows.

It also made me confront a slightly uncomfortable truth: I have spent nearly two decades arranging an unreasonable number of mornings, afternoons and late nights around one man's ability to hit a fuzzy yellow ball. There are probably worse ways to spend your time. I am conveniently choosing not to investigate.

Becoming a Rafa fan

I started following Rafa in 2007. Federer was already the definition of effortless brilliance, which made Rafa feel like the complete opposite. Every point looked like it required every ounce of him. The sprinting, the sliding, the lasso forehand and, of course, the vamos after a ridiculous point.

There was something magnetic about watching someone compete as if every point mattered equally. Rafa could be playing a Grand Slam final or be up two sets in an early round, and he still carried himself like the next point was the only one that existed.

As someone whose own tennis game has always contained considerably more enthusiasm than technique, this was deeply inspiring. Unfortunately, inspiration does not add topspin to a forehand. Perhaps the same can be said of my bowling prowess, but I digress.

The ritual of watching

Following an athlete for this long creates its own rhythm. There were the clay seasons where losing felt almost impossible, the injuries that made every comeback feel uncertain, and the matches where he somehow found another gear after looking completely spent.

Watching Rafa was rarely relaxing. Even when he was comfortably ahead, I maintained the emotional composure of someone diffusing a bomb. But that tension was part of the appeal. You never felt like he took the outcome for granted, so neither did you. Over time, the matches became markers for different periods of my own life. I can remember where I was for many of the big wins and some of the more painful losses. Jobs changed, cities changed and responsibilities grew, but for a couple of weeks every year, there was Rafa at Roland Garros.

Growing older together

The documentary does a wonderful job of revisiting the trophies and rivalries, but the part that stayed with me was seeing the passage of time. The younger Rafa seemed indestructible. Later, every tournament carried a quiet question about how much longer his body would allow him to keep going.

There is a strange comfort in following a sporting career for so long. At first, you watch your hero grow into their prime. Then one day, without really noticing when it happened, you are both older and discussing knee pain with far more authority than either of you would prefer.

His career became less about whether he would win everything and more about appreciating that he was still there. Each comeback felt like a small refusal to let the story end before he was ready.

What made Rafa different

The obvious answer is the relentlessness. Nobody made suffering through a five-set match look quite as purposeful. But what I admired most was that the intensity never seemed to turn into entitlement.

He celebrated wins, accepted losses and returned to the work. That sounds simple, but it is incredibly difficult to do consistently, especially when the entire world expects greatness from you. For all the trophies and impossible shots, that might be the most enduring part of watching Rafa: effort was never beneath him. He made trying incredibly hard look like its own form of talent.

One last vamos

Watching the documentary felt less like revisiting a collection of tennis matches and more like going through a cherished flipbook. The matches were Rafa's, but the memories attached to them were mine.

I will miss the nervous energy of watching him compete. I will miss believing that no match was truly over while he was still on court. And I will miss yelling vamos maniacally at my tv screen, an activity that contributed absolutely nothing to the outcome but felt essential nonetheless.

Gracias, Rafa. What a privilege it was to watch.