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"  Talking with Rafael Nadal, I once reached out and touched his arm. This slight, impulsive gesture prompted two thoughts: that merely attain\u00ADing such proximity to Rafa was enough to garner envy from women worldwide, and that his skin feels like satin. I mention this by way of saying that Nadal, at 24, is not simply the top tennis \u00ADplayer in the world and, \u00ADaccording to a \u00ADrecent poll, the most \u00ADadmired man in Spain by an overwhelming margin; he is also that rare, delectable hybrid, the sports icon as international rock star\u2014a role similarly \u00ADoccupied by Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham, the soccer greats whom Nadal has just succeeded as the face and body of Emporio Armani underwear. Nadal&amp;#039;s overwhelming appeal is no doubt what led Colombia&amp;#039;s global pop \u00ADsiren Shakira to conceive last year&amp;#039;s \u00AD&amp;quot;Gypsy&amp;quot; video, a sepia-toned foray into raging heat in which Nadal appears both opposite \u00ADShakira and, more significantly, on top of her. In presenting Nadal as a dreamlike figure whose cool sexuality is punctuated by his tender kisses and furtive, boyish smiles, this video captures him as he is in life: \u00ADimpassioned yet gentle, molten yet shy, and, like any genuine star, simultaneously fully accessible and tantalizingly distant.  But ask Nadal if he sees himself as a sex symbol, and he&amp;#039;ll seem very young and more than a little embarrassed. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think so,&amp;quot; he recently mumbled to a Nightline reporter. &amp;quot;I really never stop to think these things.&amp;quot; The first time I encountered Nadal, he was waiting patiently in line for a plate of pasta in the players&amp;#039; dining room at the 2008 BNP Paribas Open, a prestigious tourney in the desert town of Indian Wells, California. He was 21 then and in many ways still a kid, yet he was uniquely arrest\u00ADing, despite his unassuming, unembellished manner\u2014and also, I suppose, \u00ADbecause of it. His allure owes much, of course, to his muscled 6&amp;#039;1&amp;quot; physique, inscrut\u00ADably inky eyes, and artic\u00ADulated cheekbones. But most striking is how he emits the undeniable \u00ADessence of charisma.  On court, he&amp;#039;s the embodiment of brute, leonine energy. He plays each shot with a ravenous appe\u00ADtite for the game, the \u00ADchallenge, the competition. Former Andre Agassi coach Brad Gilbert once called \u00ADrallying with Nadal &amp;quot;an education in pain.&amp;quot; As Jimmy Connors puts it, &amp;quot;He plays like he&amp;#039;s broke.&amp;quot; Other commentators have been moved to say that if your life were at stake and you had to pick one guy to play for it, you&amp;#039;d want Nadal to be that player.  Even when he&amp;#039;s losing, he never gives up, and it&amp;#039;s thrilling to watch him \u00ADhunker down, drawing on his relish for battle and his monumental force of will. At such \u00ADmoments, his game transmutes into an expres\u00ADsion of the indomitability of the \u00ADhuman soul.     In the past, Nadal has described himself as &amp;quot;a simple boy.&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;s become a simple young man or, more accurately, many \u00ADsimple young men: the unyielding conten\u00ADder who lives with his mother; the inter\u00ADnational heartthrob who&amp;#039;s dated the same lovely hometown girl since he was 19; the dashing multimillionaire who owns an \u00ADAston Martin but doesn&amp;#039;t like to drive fast; the hard-nosed athlete who weeps at \u00ADmovies; the sports star paid millions to wear the Nike brand who was \u00ADspotted, days before he won the gold \u00ADmedal at the Beijing Olympics, doing his own laundry in the athletes&amp;#039; village.  As fierce as Nadal is on the court, off it he is equally empathetic and sentimental. In the seven years that Nadal&amp;#039;s come to New York City for the US Open, he&amp;#039;s made six pilgrimages to Ground Zero to pay his \u00ADrespects. He&amp;#039;s also seen The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway six times.  Nadal&amp;#039;s stunning duality was evident at the BNP Paribas Open in 2009 where, when he wasn&amp;#039;t bludgeoning opponents, he was playing golf, sparking up his Play\u00ADStation, soaking in a Jacuzzi, or gobbling the commissary&amp;#039;s chocolate-chip \u00ADcookies. He looked amused when a reporter \u00ADinsisted that cookies weren&amp;#039;t good for an \u00ADathlete to \u00ADingest. &amp;quot;Maybe not for the stomach, no,&amp;quot; he said, &amp;quot;but for the head, it&amp;#039;s better.&amp;quot;  The final was played in a wild desert wind that whipped through the court, raising dust and pulling awnings off their moorings. But Nadal stayed preternatu\u00ADrally focused until, as he \u00ADalways does \u00ADafter a win, he tugged off the bandana that makes him look like a pillaging pirate on the court and shook his sweat-soaked head like a puppy shaking off rain.  After the trophy presentation, those same cookies were on his mind, but the dining room had closed and there was no way to get any. As it happened, I&amp;#039;d bought some earlier, and when I handed them to him, his face lit up in a way that vividly explained why his mother says she doesn&amp;#039;t recognize him when he&amp;#039;s playing. For it was impossible to square the punishing champion I&amp;#039;d seen on court with the glowing young man now enveloping me in a spontaneous bear hug. As he walked away, he bit into a \u00ADcookie, then held it up as if toasting me with it and, with one last smile, jogged downstairs to the locker room. Rafael Nadal is from Majorca, a legendarily lovely Spanish \u00ADisland in the Mediterranean Sea that&amp;#039;s dotted with almond and olive trees and fields of wild lavender. &amp;quot;In \u00ADMajorca is my family, my friends,&amp;quot; he tells me. &amp;quot;Everything is there.&amp;quot;  Growing up in a four-story home where his parents, younger sister, grandparents, and Uncle Toni also lived, Rafa&amp;#039;s life was as idyllic as one can hope for. The \u00ADlessons he gleaned from his parents and Toni, who has always been his coach, provided the ballast and sensibility that would make him a graceful champion. A good upbringing, Toni Nadal has said, makes winning easier\u2014&amp;quot;because it implies that you have discipline, that you can listen, and that you can accept your mistakes.&amp;quot;  Rafa began playing tennis when he was four and turned pro in 2001 at 15, his \u00ADglobal ranking a meager 1,002nd. By \u00ADthe \u00ADsummer of 2008, he had become the world&amp;#039;s \u00ADnumber-one player, having \u00ADpummeled his great \u00ADrival, Roger Federer, at the French Open (6\u20131, 6\u20133, 6\u20130) and then besting him at \u00ADWimbledon. That match, a four-hour-and-48-minute battle that concluded in near-darkness, was mem\u00ADorialized on the cover of Sports Illustrated as &amp;quot;the greatest match ever.&amp;quot; It was a brutal struggle\u20146\u20134, 6\u20134, 6\u20137 (5), 6\u20137 (8), 9\u20137\u2014that highlighted how, at its best, cham\u00ADpionship tennis \u00ADrequires the strategic acumen of chess, the reactive intensity of a bullfight, the ferocity of a boxing match, the kill-or-be-killed mentality of a duel.  It&amp;#039;s impossible to write about Nadal without also writing about Federer, \u00ADbecause since 2005, when Nadal first \u00ADbested him at the French Open, they&amp;#039;ve had one of the most riveting rivalries in sports. It&amp;#039;s a familiar trope that Federer is the sport&amp;#039;s Mikhail Baryshnikov. If so, then Nadal is its \u00ADRudolf Nureyev\u2014for, like the two \u00ADdancers, they are oppo\u00ADsites. Federer is Apollonian: His playing, like Baryshnikov&amp;#039;s dancing, is light, pristine, cool, technically perfect. Nadal is Dionysian: His electrifying performances are spurred by raw power. There&amp;#039;s nothing cool about him. Like Nureyev, he is heart and passion incarnate.  After Nadal&amp;#039;s 2008 Wimbledon victory, he next met Federer in January 2009 at the Australian Open, the first of the four Grand Slam events of the season. Federer was heavily favored because he&amp;#039;d won the tournament three times before and because Nadal \u00ADseemed spent in the wake of his semifinal match, a five-hour-and-14-\u00ADminute marathon so visceral and draining that his eyes brimmed with tears of relief when he reached match point. Yet in the final, Nadal was on fire, daunting his rival with ferocious crosscourt backhands, stunning retrievals \u00ADcrafted by lunging forehands, and the canniness of his shot selection on critical points. \u00ADTennis affords no place to hide, which makes it so merciless and compelling. As Nadal sensed the finish, he grew eerily, implac\u00ADably stronger, and you could see in \u00ADFederer&amp;#039;s slumping shoulders the quickening dissolution of belief.  At 5\u20132 in the fifth set, Nadal jogged onto the court. With victory one game away, he was so crisp and efficient that the commentator Justin Gimelstob remarked, \u00AD&amp;quot;Machines don&amp;#039;t feel pressure, do they?&amp;quot;  During the trophy presentation, \u00ADFederer wept. &amp;quot;God,&amp;quot; he blurted, &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s killing me.&amp;quot; Nadal looked on, solemn, almost rueful, as he clapped his hands, slowly, deliberately in support. With reluctance, he raised the winner&amp;#039;s trophy, then wrapped a comforting arm around Federer. Moments later, in his victory speech, he turned to Federer and said, &amp;quot;Remember, you are a great cham\u00ADpion. You are one of the best of the history.&amp;quot; Tennis players evince many emotions; compassion is rarely among them. Nadal&amp;#039;s rise wasn&amp;#039;t easy. His momen\u00ADtum was often stalled by injuries resulting in fears that he might never play great \u00ADtennis again. And in early 2009, he \u00ADentered a \u00ADseason of darkness that may have taught him, at age 23, that every life has a point that distinguishes before from after.  Before, his home in Majorca was his \u00ADhaven, the sense of safety derived from his parents so necessary to him that when they were out for the evening, he slept in a brightly lit room with the TV on. But then his parents divorced, providing a field day for \u00ADEuropean tabloids and what would be a seismic \u00ADemotional event for any devoted son\u2014and all the more so in Nadal&amp;#039;s case. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s harder,&amp;quot; says his agent, Carlos Costa, &amp;quot;when you are a famous guy, and everyone thinks that you have a perfect family.&amp;quot; Before, he was known as the King of Clay and was considered a shoo-in to win the French Open, the Grand Slam event contested on clay courts, which he&amp;#039;d won all four times he&amp;#039;d played it. But in May 2009, his knees ached, and his heart ached more, and he suffered an early loss to \u00ADRobin Soderling in one of the biggest upsets in tennis history. The French crowd booed him as he left the court \u00ADshaken, vulnerable, and dazed. Yet within the hour, at his mandatory press conference, he \u00ADoffered as poetic a statement as you&amp;#039;ll hear from an athlete: &amp;quot;You need a defeat to give value to your victories,&amp;quot; he said.  But then the patellar tendinitis in his knees worsened and, unable to defend his Wimbledon title, he lay on the couch at home watching the tournament. It&amp;#039;s said that he tried to reconcile his parents, to no avail; it was a jarring passage for a young man who&amp;#039;d often said that nothing matters more than good health and family.     &amp;quot;I was trying to keep to myself,&amp;quot; he would later tell a Spanish newspaper. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t look at my cell phone or answer messages. I was outside myself, living a \u00ADperiod that wasn&amp;#039;t simple.&amp;quot;   When Nadal returned to the \u00ADtennis tour, he went nearly a year without a title, and he worried that he might never again compete at the highest level or play without pain. Then the clay-court \u00ADseason \u00ADbegan in April 2010, and he stormed through it, winning all three Masters events, the last one with a straight-sets victory over \u00ADFederer. \u00ADArriv\u00ADing at the French Open, he confessed to \u00ADreporters that he was &amp;quot;more nervous than usual&amp;quot; but proved unbeatable, not losing a single set before the \u00ADfinal\u2014again against Soderling. When he won, reclaiming his number-one ranking, he buried his face in a towel and wept huge sobs of relief and joy, having overcome his own demons. Four weeks later, he took his second Wimbledon title.  By that time, he and his mother had moved to a house on the sea in Porto \u00ADCristo, five miles from the home where he was raised. Whenever he can, he goes out fishing on a small boat with some of his boyhood friends. &amp;quot;I like everything with the boat,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Wake up in the morning, go in the middle of the sea, watch the sun come up. It&amp;#039;s perfect.&amp;quot;  At home, he spends time with his longtime girlfriend, Maria Francisca \u00ADPerello, now 22, who recently earned a business \u00ADdegree. Inevitably, they&amp;#039;ve become \u00ADfavored targets of paparazzi who photograph them skimming the water on a Sea-Doo and \u00ADembracing in the ocean&amp;#039;s gentle waves.  When Nadal is back on the road, he calls his parents and younger sister every night. About his mother, he tells me, &amp;quot;She makes me feel better about everything.&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s mid-August 2010, and Nadal is in Cincinnati, sitting alone at the bar of his hotel, sipping Pellegrino and watching a replay of the match he&amp;#039;d won a few hours ago, which is airing on a TV set directly above him. Observing himself, he seems neither pleased nor displeased. Instead, he looks clinically for what he always looks for: what he did right and, most important, what he can do better.  &amp;quot;You played great out there today,&amp;quot; the older woman tells him. &amp;quot;Just so-so,&amp;quot; he demurs.  &amp;quot;You always look good to us.&amp;quot; Nadal shrugs. He smiles shyly at the women, then shrugs again. &amp;quot;Well,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;good enough.&amp;quot;  A few days before the 2010 US Open in New York City, Nadal takes part in a Nike event benefiting inner-city kids. He&amp;#039;s \u00ADgoing to play doubles, if you can call it that, with the model Bar Refaeli\u2014who has never before held a \u00ADracquet\u2014against \u00ADVictoria Azarenka, a highly ranked female tennis player, and New York \u00ADGiants \u00ADdefensive end Justin Tuck. Serena \u00ADWilliams is there too, in the role of \u00ADprematch interviewer. Microphone in hand, she turns to Nadal: &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ve got a great body,&amp;quot; she tells him.  Nadal&amp;#039;s eyes pop. &amp;quot;What?&amp;quot; he says.  &amp;quot;Can I see your abs?&amp;quot; asks Williams.  &amp;quot;No, no, no!&amp;quot; says Nadal, blushing.  Later, in the hotel&amp;#039;s elevator, he encoun\u00ADters a sweet-faced woman from Missouri and her fiftysomething daughter, who \u00ADrecently retired from serving as an \u00ADassistant to a U.S. senator. They&amp;#039;re \u00ADmembers of the Vamos Brigade, a website for Nadal fans that offers everything from articles and \u00ADimages culled from publications worldwide to a thread for the terminally besotted called Droolers Anonymous.  These are fans who see in Nadal a humil\u00ADity and honor that they don&amp;#039;t find anywhere else. They&amp;#039;ve cheered his progression from the baby-cheeked \u00ADupstart who fist-pumped whenever he made a \u00ADwinning shot to \u00ADtoday&amp;#039;s glamorous on-court assassin.  The referee is John McEnroe; Nadal is hooked up to a wireless mike so he and McEnroe can trade witticisms, but it&amp;#039;s not exactly working out. McEnroe, with his manic New York energy, vibrates at a \u00ADhigher frequency than Nadal, who&amp;#039;s the oppo\u00ADsite of New York glib and \u00ADwas clearly not born to trade barbs with Johnny Mac.  Every time Refaeli hits a ball, it goes into the net. Nadal gives her supportive high fives, but they&amp;#039;re losing, and he&amp;#039;s \u00ADalways dead set on winning, whether at tennis, PlayStation, darts, or Ping-Pong. Still, when the match ends, he puts an arm around Refaeli and says, &amp;quot;I think you played unbelievable.&amp;quot;  Nadal&amp;#039;s been a trouper, upholding his end of the compulsory good cheer and making the best of being out of his \u00ADelement. But then, as he&amp;#039;s photographed with some of the kids, he kneels down and wraps an arm tightly around a small \u00ADboy. He smiles at the child and ruffles his hair. Suddenly \u00ADNadal&amp;#039;s face lights up, and he seems truly himself once again.  The US Open is the last major tennis tournament of the year. Here, Nadal will have a chance to do what only six cham\u00ADpions in history have done before: \u00ADcomplete a \u00ADcareer Grand Slam. This, the most daunting feat in the sport, \u00ADentails \u00ADwinning all four major tournaments over the course of one&amp;#039;s career. Nadal has \u00ADalready won the Australian Open, the French Open five times, and Wimbledon twice. If he prevails at the US Open, he&amp;#039;ll cement his standing as one of the sport&amp;#039;s all-time greatest players. The \u00ADproblem is, the \u00ADtournament is contested on fast hardcourts that don&amp;#039;t suit his game. As he must be aware, it is widely questioned among tennis aficio\u00ADnados whether he can ever win it all here.  It&amp;#039;s the end of the first week of the US Open. Nadal has just finished his grueling practice and is showering in the player&amp;#039;s locker room. Here at the \u00ADBillie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, his \u00ADvolcanic, electrifying play has been stunning and \u00ADdelighting crowds. He looks bright and scrubbed as he heads out to the \u00ADplayers&amp;#039; garden, a pleasant stretch of grass and trees where competitors and their teams and families can relax unobserved in the late summer sun. He goes to the soft-drink bar, gets two cans of soda, and brings them to his agent and his Uncle Toni. As always, he&amp;#039;s the mannerly young man, \u00ADdeferring to his elders. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s really easy,&amp;quot; Toni Nadal once said, &amp;quot;for these guys to start thinking the world revolves around them. I never could have tolerated it if Rafael had become a good player and a bad example of a human being.&amp;quot;    Nadal&amp;#039;s team\u2014coach, agent, press rep, and physiotherapist\u2014have been with him for years. They are men as \u00ADwomen like them to be: calm and confident, accustomed to winning, philosophical about losing. They cheer Nadal on, kick a \u00ADsoccer ball with him, and often dine on the meal he loves to prepare for them: pasta with shrimp and mushrooms. &amp;quot;He cooks it very well,&amp;quot; a team member once said, &amp;quot;but, frankly, we are fed up to the teeth with mushrooms.&amp;quot; No one in the tennis world has more \u00ADinfluence on Nadal than his Uncle Toni, who has schooled him in both the intricacies of \u00ADtennis and the vagaries of life. Toni&amp;#039;s inter\u00ADests range widely, from gardening to history to impres\u00ADsionist art. Adamantly anti\u00ADreligious, he is a rigorous and charming moralist, a secular philosopher who once rebuked a reporter who gushed about the &amp;quot;drama&amp;quot; of tennis. &amp;quot;This is not drama,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;Drama is people in Africa who don&amp;#039;t have enough to eat. Drama is people no one ever smiles at.&amp;quot;  When Nadal was a child, Toni took amused pleasure in convincing him that he\u2014Toni\u2014had magical powers. Nadal was about eight years old when he played one of his first matches. &amp;quot;I told him,&amp;quot; Toni recalls, &amp;quot;that he didn&amp;#039;t need to worry if the match went badly because I have the \u00ADability to make it rain. The match got tight. It started to rain. Then Rafael turned to me and said: `It&amp;#039;s all right, you can make it stop now. I&amp;#039;m going to win!&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; That afternoon in the players&amp;#039; garden, Rafael Nadal is just three match wins from making history, and winning must be foremost in his mind. Yet, when we sit down for an interview, he talks instead about how \u00ADfortunate he is to make his living by playing\u2014as he puts it, &amp;quot;one of my hobbies.&amp;quot; One week later, the unending work he&amp;#039;s \u00ADinvested in that hobby will bring him to the final of the US Open.  He&amp;#039;ll be playing the rising Serbian star \u00ADNovak Djokovic, but, to his annoyance, the match is delayed one day due to \u00ADtorrential rains that he knows his uncle cannot stop. This favors Djokovic, who won an exhausting semifinal against Federer just the day before\u2014and after that match, needing rest, joked that he was praying for rain. &amp;quot;I suppose what I take out of things is that God is Orthodox,&amp;quot; Nadal&amp;#039;s press representative, Benito Perez-\u00ADBarbadillo, told The New York Times dryly.  When the match commences the next day, it&amp;#039;s clear that it will be a brutal contest. Nadal powers through the first set 6\u20134, steady and \u00ADunstoppable as a locomotive. During the \u00ADsecond set, though, it \u00ADbegins to rain anew, and the \u00ADplayers have to leave the court for nearly two hours. When they face off again, Nadal plays one shaky game, and just like that Djokovic takes the \u00ADsecond set 5\u20137, tying the match. But Nadal summons his will, playing bold, \u00ADunflinching, slashing tennis. Facing an implacable \u00ADonslaught, Djokovic fights back, but Nadal grows stronger and more dogged with \u00ADevery stroke. Djokovic, railing against the seemingly inevitable, destroys his racket by pounding it \u00ADfuriously on the back court. Two points from vic\u00ADtory, Nadal executes an \u00ADimpossible shot that just grazes the line, and Djokovic, looking stunned, sinks to his \u00ADhaunches, &amp;quot;bowing,&amp;quot; as CBS Sports commentator Dick \u00ADEnberg says, &amp;quot;to the brilliance of his opponent.&amp;quot;  Seated just off the court, Nadal&amp;#039;s girlfriend shares an excited smile with his mother, then clasps her hands as if in prayer. A moment later, the match won, Nadal raises both arms above his head as he falls to his knees in relief, triumph, and exultation. In sports, we occasionally see a dream come true: This, the making of Rafael Nadal&amp;#039;s career Grand Slam, is one of those times.  But Nadal also knows that sport, like life, is a process. And a few weeks later, I think about a comment he made at a press conference just \u00ADbefore his epic victory. Even if he were to win the US Open, he noted, he&amp;#039;d soon be playing in Shanghai and feeling nervous about the first round. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s the tennis,&amp;quot; he&amp;#039;d said. And indeed, in Shanghai, he loses an early round, his hundredth career loss against 472 wins. As I watch him leave the court defeated, I think of what he told me when I&amp;#039;d asked what is the hardest part of his tennis life. &amp;quot;I am a very lucky person,&amp;quot; he&amp;#039;d said, &amp;quot;so it is impossible for me to say something negative about my career or about what&amp;#039;s the hardest thing of my \u00ADcareer, because I think everything is unbelievable.&amp;quot;  And it strikes me that when Nadal says &amp;quot;every\u00ADthing is unbelievable,&amp;quot; he says it with full understanding that things don&amp;#039;t always work out, that the reward and privilege lie in the \u00ADbattle itself, in the willingness to go all out, to put yourself on the line, to keep on trying your best, no matter what. In the end, he&amp;#039;s a practitioner of the philosophy he alluded to in the players&amp;#039; garden when I asked him what advice he&amp;#039;d give a young player who wants to be a professional. &amp;quot;Enjoy suffering,&amp;quot; he said. 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<http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a11569/rafael-nadal/>