It's 1986 in Manacor, Spain and a couple have just welcomed a new baby boy into the world. His father is a high powered businessman and his mother is a housewife. Nobody dreamt at the time that this baby would go on to be one of the best players to ever pick up a tennis racquet. Almost 28 years, 13 grand slams and an Olympic gold medal later Rafael Nadal's legacy has well and truly been born.
From a young age it was clear that Rafael had a natural talent for tennis. With the mentorship of his uncle Toni, a young Nadal quickly developed his game changing his dominant hand to left handed opposed to his natural right to adapt his game to suit him. After that, it wasn't long until the world knew the name Rafael Nadal.
Now filling arenas worldwide, Nadal is one of the biggest names in tennis, known for his tenacity and never say die attitude. The Spaniard is main event news and a big fan favourite, with hoardes flocking to look him play at events all over the world.
The French Open has become his battlefield, his dojo if you will, his sadistic playground where he dismisses victim upon victim on his beloved red clay not giving opponents room to breathe, bullying them into submission. He metaphorically squeezes them like a boa constrictor until nothing is left before finally delivering the coupe de grace to end their suffering.
Nadal has a favourable start to proceedings this year, drawing the American wildcard Robby Ginepri in the first round. In fact, up until the fourth round, there shouldn't be much of a challenge for the Spaniard as he should be able to muscle his way into matches and pull out easy wins from this, he then potentially faces Nicolas Almagro, David Ferrer and then either Andy Murray or Stanislas Wawrinka in the semi-final, before playing Novak Djokovic in the final if it goes with seedings.
There are potentially pitfalls along the way but I believe it's going to take a superhuman effort and someone playing the tennis of their lives to beat Nadal in five sets at Roland Garros, and even then it may not be enough.
As he has shown time and time again, beating him on clay is hard enough, beating him at Roland Garros, however, is an unenviable task with only one player having done it in his whole career.
In 2009, Swede Robin Soderling played hard-hitting lights out tennis to beat Nadal at his home from home Phillipe Chatrier, in what was a gruelling match but as he showed last year coming from behind in the semi-final - Djokovic, winning 9-7 in the fifth set and then beating Ferrer in the final, lightning very rarely strikes twice.
With Djokovic winning Rome from a set down last week in Rome, The Serb is now the bookmaker's favourite to lift the Coupe des Mosquetaires in just over two weeks but to quote a well known phrase, if you mess with the bull you get the horns. Roland Garros is a completely different animal in terms of mentality and losing in Rome will have spurred number one seed Nadal, on to bring his best at the French Open and show that he is the undisputed King Of Clay and reclaim his crown in Paris.
He goes for his ninth Roland Garros title starting Sunday and with a 59-1 win/loss record at the Parisian event, coupled with the fact that he's done it eight times before showing repeatedly that he completely dominates the surface, one would think it's only a matter of time before the formidable Spaniard silences his doubters and takes to his throne once again.
Roland Garros starts tomorrow and we will be covering all of the action here at VAVEL Tennis bringing you all the latest news from the second slam of the season.