Nadal, Djokovic and the others: why are geniuses (sometimes) crazy?

He ended up dropping the case. After playing – and winning – with an abdominal tear for more than four hours against Taylor Fritzranked 14^e world player, tennis player Rafael Nadal (4^e) came to his senses: he will not play the semi-final of the Wimbledon tournament. But what could have pushed one of the greatest virtuosos of contemporary tennis to continue his dantesque quarter-final, in a particular edition of Wimbledon where them participants’ world ranking points are frozen because of the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian players, and while his clan begged him to give up? Maybe because, as argues Arthur Schopenhauerit is the essence of genius that always flirting with madness…

“It did not make sense”

Rafael Nadal was not at his first attempt when it comes to playing with injury. During his quarter-final, we saw him serve much less hard and focus on a defensive game at the end of the court. It’s in the second setafter conceding a first easily won by his opponent (6-3), the American Taylor Fritzthat we saw the clan of the Spaniard – including his father and sister – summoning him to give up. But the “Manacor bull” did not hear it that way and drew on his resources, adapted his game to win this second set (7-5) and continue, whatever the cost, even after a third set once again flown over by Fritz (6-3), a young opponent with a powerful physique (24 years old, 1.93 m for 86 kilos). We know that Nadal is used to composing under the patronage of pain, he who suffers from the rare syndrome of Müller-Weiss, a vascular degeneration of the bone of the left foot which obliges him to play under infiltrations and with adapted soles. Despite everything, the abandonment announced yesterday is only the fifth in a Grand Slam for a player who is more than fifteen years into his career. Here, the judgment of the doctors fell: the 36-year-old player suffered from an abdominal tear of 7 millimeters. A joke that is reminiscent of its best enemy, Novak Djokovicwho won the Australian Open last year, another of four Grand Slams, despite suffering a 17-millimeter abdominal tear…

” It did not make sense “, Nadal conceded once his head cooled. Indeed, one wonders what could have pushed the Spaniard once again to challenge his aching body and seek yet another victory, even though he already has (and it is quite dizzying and unprecedented in the history of tennis) 22 Grand Slam titles. As many and as often, a laconic expression is necessary: ” He is crazy. » It’s a real leitmotif, which returns when the player wins yet another Roland Garros fifteen years after the first, that he plays four or five hour matches despite a dysfunctional foot, that he surgically aligns his water bottles and reproduces exactly the same tics to each of its services. same for me Novak Djokovicwhen he launches into terrifying screams, his eyes bulging, bangs against the stands, tears off his polo shirt or launches into signs of the cross while hammering his chest, as after this breathtaking final of the Australian Open 2012 won after almost six hours of play against a certain… Nadal.

Bar genius

It turns out that this proximity between genius and madness was noted by Arthur Schopenhauer, in Book III of World as Will and as Representation (1819). Of course, Schopenhauer has artistic genius in mind, but let us use this qualifier to designate these two great champions, who smashed all the records in the history of their sport and reign supreme over tennis. for many years, in company, it is true to Roger Federer, which for its part had to slow down for a few years. At this point, it’s art. “Genius and madnesswritten by Schopenhauer, have a side by which they touch each other and even by which they penetrate each other. » Both of them, he explains, are prone to tormented behavior resulting from their particular perception of the world with which they merge, which truly makes geniuses “are in short capable of showing many weaknesses that really border on madness”. This weakness is precisely the one, to return to our players and here to Nadal in particular, which pushes them to irrationality, unreason and self-forgetfulness. About the man of genius, Schopenhauer actually notes a “complete oblivion of the personality and its relations” which, by definition, “lack of caution” and is found “often prey to violent affections and senseless passions”. The latter is so caught up in the contemplation of his object and the realization of his work that he loses sight of common sense, “which amounts to completely losing sight of our interests, our will, our ends”.

In this case, again, Nadal himself admitted that what he did did not make sense. To continue to play under these conditions, without the issue of points, with already such a fine record and despite the long-term danger, was objectively insane. This is why one cannot help finding this parallel between self-forgetting and Schopenhauer’s description of genius, which also echoes all these gestures of superstition, these outbursts and outbursts, these forces of mind so striking that can give way to great tears and fragilities, as we were already talking about Novak Djokovic. It is only necessary to stop for a moment on the gaze of the two men caught up in their encounters, so singular. “A lively and firm gaze”Schopenhauer would say about genius, “which bears the mark of intuition, of contemplation”. We hope to see these looks for a long time to come, even if one day they will have to share a little… and spare each other!