The French Open is upon us, and a feeling of loss is creeping in from the shadows of Court Philippe-Chatrier. For the first official time it won’t feature the clay artistry of its greatest sculptor, the Rodin of Roland-Garros, Rafael Nadal. There is a grand farewell planned for kickoff night, May 25, which is both obvious and a little silly, since they already dedicated a statue to his greatness. However, over the course of the tournament, it will be a bit sad and strange to check in on the men’s draw and not see El Matador lancing his opponents. But while it may be so hard to say goodbye, it’s still easier than grasping his overall French Open numbers, equally quantifiable and unfathomable. 

Rafa’s armada of fans are well aware of the 14 French Open titles and his 112–4 record, but dig a little deeper in the red clay and things get really salvaje y loco. Behold, a brief sampler from Nadal’s 19 appearances: Of his 112 victories, 90 were in straight sets; his overall sets lead capped out at 333–37; he didn’t drop a set in four different years; he was undefeated in the finals and never even went to a fifth set; between 2005 and 2021 he had match-winning streaks of 31/35/39 on the terre battue; his bagel record is a spotless 24–0; and it was 17 years from his first title, at 19, in ’05, to his last, at 36, in ’21. We could keep tilling statistics, but it would be all to say, when it comes to the level of domination Nadal held over two decades of Roland-Garros fields, there are no words. 

Unless you happen to be Christopher Clarey, author of the fantastic new book The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay. There is no more qualified journalist—at least among American scribes—than Clarey. Not only is he a sportswriter who spent 30 years spanning the globe to cover the entirety of the Big Three era for The New York Times, and he also he married a Parisian in the early ’90s and was able to stroll down the Seine to work.

Clarey—now dropping knowledge at the Tennis & Beyond Substack—crafts the book by splitting the difference between a cradle-to-calling-it-a-career biography of the only man to rank No. 1 in three different decades, and a laser-focused look at Nadal’s favorite surface and venue. He works wonders crocheting these two constructs into whole cloth. It’s been a long, ongoing conversation between Rafa and Clarey, trust built tournament upon tournament, so The Warrior is authoritative and thorough but also feels like it’s happening in real-ish time, given that Nadal’s retirement isn’t even six months old. Clarey’s match-play descriptions are vivid to the point of coming across like live audio—Bud Collins’ voice, naturally—because he was always there, but he’s also no longer hemmed in by Times style and can wax poetically, curiously, or humorously where he sees fit. Nada’s still-shocking 2009 defeat by Robin Soderling (with whom El Matador had beef, who knew?) includes an anecdote of Clarey realizing what was unfolding and sprinting from the pressroom to try to find a seat at the match he’s been ignoring, a personal history of the upsettee, a digression into if it’s the biggest upset in tennis history, and a look at Nadal’s bounce-back 2010 title. It would be No. 5, the one that, LOL, left him one Roland-Garros championship short of all-time leader Bjorn Borg. 

In delivering The Warrior while Nadal’s clay footprints haven’t faded away, I think Clarey is astutely marking his authorial territory. Given that his previous book The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer came out the year before Rog hung up the strings, it’s not a leap to presume a Djokovic tome is in the works, definitive markers of the trivalry before the first post–Big Three history is written. Individualizing biographies allows Clarey more space to take readers down relevant rabbit holes, adding layered depth that goes far and beyond the on-court brilliance. 

There are different ways the structure plays out in Kingdom of Clay—a fine enough subtitle, but Empire of Dirt was sitting right there, and “I hurt myself, today” is a recurring Rafa theme—and here are two, one big, one small. The former is chapter 4, “The Canvas,” a fascinating 23-page exploration of clay courts, which Clarey believes in an age of homogenization are “still for the grinder, the geometer, and maybe even the deep thinker.” He gets into the nitty-gritty of the annual March Roland-Garros construction, from white limestone to the famed ochre surface, and goes worldwide highlighting different styles of clay, like in India, where there’s a tradition of courts being topped with dried rolled cow pies. 

The latter, granular example is chapter 14, “The Rituals.” In six pages, Clarey observes and lists Rafa’s on-court oddities like his career-long wedgie-pulling habit, the evolution of the headband-nose-ear touching, and whatever the hell he’s doing with the sideline water bottles. Turns out it’s not OCD. The service game goofiness is a timing mechanism—first introduced to Nadal as a kid to slow down his warp-speed pace—that took on a life of its own and even irritates the practitioner himself. (Except for the underwear tug: Nadal says, “I could never get rid of. It’s impossible.”) The Evian shuffle thing isn’t superstition either; it’s a way to prevent his mind from wandering during changeovers. Call the tics funny or annoying, but don’t call them without purpose. One legend’s bizarre behavior is the same legend’s decision to sport clamdiggers. 

In lesser hands, these detours would be interesting and perhaps a bit superfluous, but Clarey doesn’t waste a sentence. Understanding how clay is made and how ritualisms function gives complexity and nuance in understanding why Nadal owns Roland-Garros. At its essence, it all adds up to Rafa’s unparalleled sliding technique, a primary key to his kingdom of clay. Fitting Nadal’s game, The Warrior is methodical and deliberative; it’s not the dishy, breezy whirlwind circus-come-to-town read of our previous selection, John Feinstein’s Hard Courts. Although, take note, there’s one gossipy headline-making-any-day-now moment late in The Warrior where French Open administrator Gilles Jourdan compares “false ideal son-in-law” Federer with “real deal” Nadal. It’s an assessment Clarey calls “intriguing” while also saying it was never his experience dealing with Roger and probably has something to do with his 0–6 French Open Fedal standing.

If The Warrior sounds of interest, I recommend learning from a reviewer’s grave mistake. I put the book on a page-count deadline clock, knocking it out in four days. I wrong-footed myself. It would’ve been better to let Clarey’s prose unfold over the course of a few weeks, to open it up and let it breathe, to savor it like a bottle of fine French whiskey. (It exists!) Rafael Nadal is going to be deservedly feted throughout this year’s Roland-Garros, and The Warrior is the perfect companion piece. Go roll around in the dirt of the greatest singular achievement tennis will ever know. Rafa, our sweetest friend, will be missed.

But everyone goes away in the end.