The Warrior

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Master comes an intimate biography of tennis’s enduring champion Rafael Nadal. 

In The Warrior, Christopher Clarey illuminates the skill and determination it took to accomplish Rafael Nadal’s most mind-blowing achievement: 14 French Open titles. Nadal has won big  on tennis’s many surfaces en route to becoming one of the greatest players of all time: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and four U.S. Open titles on cushioned acrylic hardcourts. But clay, the slowest and grittiest of the game’s playgrounds, is where it all comes together best for his tactical skills, whipping topspin forehand and gladiatorial mindset. Clay is to Rafael Nadal what water is to Michael Phelps, which helps explain one of the most impressive individual sports achievements of the 21st century. 

Clarey draws on interviews over many years with Nadal and his team and with rivals like Roger Federer. Not just a book about tennis, The Warrior draws much wider lessons from Nadal’s approach to competition.

• "The definitive volume on the definitive clay court player of all time."
  Vogue
• “Christopher Clarey wrote what is widely regarded as the definitive book on Roger Federer: The Master. Now he has produced a similarly authoritative book on Federer’s longtime rival and friend, Rafael Nadal: The Warrior. The book tells the story of both Nadal and clay-court tennis, using the Spanish great’s relationship with Roland Garros, the French Open, as its frame."
  The New York Times
• "A wonderful addition to the canon of great tennis books... offers new insight into Nadal's unprecedented dominance on clay courts."
  Town & Country
• “Though the narrative focuses on Nadal, Roland-Garros’s clay courts become a character in their own right as Clarey provides rich background on the event’s history... It’s a meticulous recap of one of tennis’s great achievements.”
  Publishers Weekly
• “This insightful, wide-ranging book could serve as a model for other sports biographers.... An inspired portrait of an unusually dominant athlete.”
  Kirkus Reviews