Champion's heart

Rafael Nadal blogs on winning the French Open

When the match was over I needed to get into the stands as quickly as I could to hug my family. To me the family is everything and I wanted to hug my uncles, my mother and especially my father. And I will tell you what I told him. I said to my father, “Daddy, thanks for everything,” and we just cried. I guess that's why he didn't want to release me – because he didn’t want people to see that he was crying. It was a special moment.

I got my trophy and when I was having my briefing before getting the trophy I had mentioned to Benito of the ATP that I would talk a lot about Roger, so I did. I gave my speach in Spanish. When in the second sentence I said how great Roger is people were booing. I didn't know what it was. I thought maybe something had happened or maybe they misunderstood the translation. Afterwards we all realized the translator did not say what I said. The crowd thought I was talking about myself. It was just a misunderstanding. I was praising Roger, not myself, and I will always praise Roger because he is a great guy and a great champion. ...

Anyway, to tell the story short, we left the site around 10.45 with all my family waiting in the hotel. We had scheduled to go to the Spanish embassy... that is a tradition to say hi to the ambassador. We got there very late at 11.20, so I have to apologize, as that's not the right time to go into anyone's house. To go to the embassy, that is exciting as people are waiting for you, you have the flags and everything. I got there and we left at midnight and Carlos Costa, my manager, had booked a nice restaurant, Trocadero, with a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower.

There we had all my family, all my friends who came, all my sponsors we had invited to be there with us. It was great. What did I eat? I had a carpccio salmon and chicken with curry and rice. I was so hungry, you cannot believe it. Really hungry. So I had a lot to eat.

Then after dinner we went to a place to have a couple of drinks and move a little bit the body. But not much as you know I am already in London writing this blog. This last blog.

How long will it be before other athletes start sharing their feelings after big victories on blogs?

In recent history, I would have loved to have read:
-Derek Jeter after the Yankees beat the Braves in 1996
-Tiger Woods after his record Masters win in 1997
-The Russians on the Red Wings after they beat Philadelphia in 1997
-Tom Brady after the Patriots beat the Rams in 2002
-Pete Sampras after he beat Andre Agassi at the U.S. Open in 2002
-Larry Brown or Rasheed Wallace (or Shaq) after the Pistons beat the Lakers in 2004
-Shani Davis after he won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 2006

Who knows how many if any of the above would've been as articulate and consistently interesting as Nadal has been--but even a poor blog is better than nothing.

Uncredited photo of Nadal on a quiet French Open Court from his blog.