TOWARDS the end of the revealing four-part Netflix documentary, Rafa, the great Spanish tennis legend, Rafael Nadal, now retired, ponders his legacy. He speculates that the 24 Grand Slam singles titles record held by longtime rival, Novak Djokovic, is more likely to be broken than his own 14 French Open singles titles.

It’s a bold prediction, given Djokovic’s two closest rivals who are still active players, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, only have seven and four Grand Slam singles titles respectively.

But Nadal’s run at the French Open was indeed remarkable, alongside a famous 81 consecutive match win-streak on clay that earned him the title “King of Clay.” He eventually overtook his longtime rival, Roger Federer, in the Grand Slam titles race, with 22 to Federer’s 20, temporarily earning him what has become a rotating accolade, the GOAT — Greatest Of All Time.

Every era of tennis has had its GOAT, even before the acronym was invented. But although that title is currently conferred on Djokovic, one cannot discount Nadal’s candidacy, with his 92 ATP Tour titles, two Olympic gold medals, and his incredible 112-4 record on the clay courts of Paris, the greatest single tournament win-rate of all time.

As the US Open begins on August 30, all eyes will be on that Grand Slam record, a statistic that Djokovic himself, now 39, could well extend himself. (He also has his own documentary, Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter, just released on Amazon Prime Video.)

Despite some recent ups and downs, the Serb, currently ranked number five in the world, reached the final of the Australian Open this January and the Wimbledon semi-finals in July. In New York, his path to the title has been made potentially easier by the withdrawal of Italy’s Sinner, due to a knee injury. Sinner is the world’s number one and the man Djokovic beat in the Australian Open, then lost to at Wimbledon.

Another advantage for Djokovic could be the uncertain form of Alcaraz, Nadal’s Spanish successor, who has been sidelined for four months with a right wrist injury.

Alcaraz may be Spain’s new tennis hero and Nadal’s natural heir, but he is not truly Nadal’s protege. Alcaraz occasionally trained with Nadal, but he emerged from the Equelite Academy in Villena, run by his longtime coach Juan Carlos Ferrero. The moment when a 19-year-old Alcaraz beats the by then 35-year-old Nadal on the clay courts of the 2022 Madrid Open is a particularly bittersweet one in the Rafa film.

Instead, there is another left-hander emerging from the Nadal fold, who may deliver some surprises at the US Open. But she is playing in the women’s singles.

Alexandra Eala, just 21 years old and hailing from the Philippines, has single-(left)handedly ignited a passion for tennis across her country. While she has not exactly been lingering in obscurity, winning the Junior US Open title in 2022 and her first tour title in Guadalajara last year, now seems to be her true breakout moment.

Eala trains at the Rafael Nadal Academy in Mallorca. She is coached there by Joan Bosch, although Nadal’s famous and sometimes notoriously strict uncle and coach, Toni Nadal, has also had a hand in her development.

Eala first served notice of the threat she has now become at the 2025 Miami Open, played on her favourite hard court surface, the same as the US Open. There, she defeated three top-ranked players in a row — Jelena Ostapenko, Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek, to reach the semi-finals.

But it was in the searingly hot US summer of 2026 that Eala finally broke into the world’s top 20, when she stunned four seeded players in a row to win the Washington DC Open, knocking out Leylah Fernandez, Elina Svitolina, Naomi Osaka and world number three and top seed Jessica Pegula in succession.

The final with Pegula had been halted overnight for rain with Pegula a set up and trailing Eala 1-2 in the second. On a sunny Monday, Eala claimed the second set 6-4 before pummelling Pegula 6-0 in the third set to win the title. Pegula had been the player Eala had lost to 7-6, 5-7, 6-3 during her 2025 run in Miami. Clearly, she had not forgotten it.

Indeed, there was something about Eala’s decisive close in the DC final that had the Nadal stamp all over it; incredible fortitude and determination in the face of adversity and past memories of defeat.

This mindset is perhaps the most striking aspect of the Rafa documentary, along with the revelation that Nadal played his entire career in extraordinary pain, stemming from an almost lifelong degenerative foot condition, Muller-Weiss syndrome, that later affected his knee and hip.

Nadal’s willingness to withstand pain comes across as both extraordinary and at times a tiny bit crazy. At one point he argues that since the pain is the same whether he is off court or on, he may as well compete.

That moment was a touch reminiscent of the scene in the film All The President’s Men, when Bob Woodward’s secret source — variously known as Deep Throat or Garage Freak — relates a story about president Nixon’s White House operative, G Gordon Liddy, placing his hand over an open candle at parties until his flesh burned. When asked what the trick was, Liddy apparently replied, “the trick is not minding.”

For Nadal, that was less a trick than a way of being. He endured the pain but what he actually minded was opponents getting inside his head. Exorcising doubt when all seemed lost on the court was one of Nadal’s greatest strengths. Eala clearly demonstrated that in dismissing Pegula in DC.

Amid all the focus on statistics and strategy that dominates sports analysis, mental strength is often overlooked. What the Nadal documentary series drives home most powerfully is the importance of that mental fortitude in a solitary sport such as tennis. At the top level, everyone has the game. But it is the ability not to crumble under pressure that can sometimes deliver a seemingly impossible come-from-behind victory.

Djokovic is the master of that. He has come back from a two-set deficit in a five-set Grand Slam match eight times. The most impressive of these was his 6–7, 2–6, 6–3, 6–2, 6-4 win over Stefanos Tsitsipas in the 2021 French Open final.

But as the Rafa film wraps up, we are delivered a few sobering reminders of a greatness that may never be surpassed. Nadal spent a record 912 consecutive weeks in the world’s top 10, spanning almost 18 years. And he is the only player in tennis history to be ranked number one in the world in three different decades.

If Djokovic feels his 39 years at any moment during the upcoming US Open, he may reflect on that and dig deeper into the Nadal well of endurance.

Linda Pentz is a writer living in Takoma Park, Maryland. She covered the professional tennis circuit from 1977-98.