For some time I have been watching the sky from the same place.
Sometimes – when the clouds gather in a dramatic formation – I take a photo.
Most of the time, though, I don’t.
Some days it is completely cloudy. Some days the wind blows so hard that the clouds just rush by. Some days the sun shines brightly. Some days the sun isn’t even visible, and you’d think it wouldn’t exist if it weren’t so bright.
But with or without clouds, the sky is always there. Not always blue, not always bright, but always there.

“Well, the life change sometimes, no,” said the Spanish tennis pro Rafael Nadal. “Ten months ago seems like I never gonna be another time the same. Now seems I gonna be one of the greatest, so I don’t think that’s not that bad in that moment and not that good in this moment. So always is in the middle, I think, no?”
He finally managed to win the men’s singles title at the 2010 US Open when it looked like he would never make it. The “King of Clay,” as he is known, was most successful on the relatively slow clay court, which requires heavier balls. The US Open, one of the four major tennis tournaments held at Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York, has a fast hard court and light balls.

Image: Rafael Nadal at the 2010 US Open, Francisco Diez, CC-BY-2.0

Alluding to the ten months before winning, Nadal went through a crisis caused by physical, but above all emotional stress. The world of a man who, like John Boy Walton, grew up in a house with his sister, parents and grandparents must have come apart at the seams when his parents decided to divorce. But in what must have been the weakest moments of his young life, he didn’t give up on himself.

‘A humble king’ journalists call him. He really is. After his victory at Flushing Meadows, he is one of seven men to own a career Grand Slam, meaning he has won all four Grand Slam tournaments at least once. When asked if he is the best player of all time, however, he declines, readily awarding that title to his archrival Roger Federer, even though Nadal comes out on top in their head-to-head duels.

Not only as an athlete, but also as a person, he achieves a greatness worthy of emulation. He is willing to adapt, to change. Just like the sky.
Good or bad, high or low, far or near, always is in the middle. Always is there.

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Image header: LJS

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