Page 51 - Waterfall City SeptOct Issue 2025

The Girl with the Suitcase The Warrior
By Lesley Pearse By Christopher Clarey
By Any Other Name

When Mary meets a glamorous An intimate, original biography of tennis By Jodi Picoult
stranger named Elizabeth, she legend Rafael Nadal, and the first to cover his
realises their lives couldn’t entire career. Emilia Bassano is allowed no
be more different. Elizabeth voice of her own but finds a way
is beautiful and charming, After his award-winning look at Roger to secretly bring her work to
about to set off on a dazzling Federer, Christopher Clarey, one of the world’s the stage. Yet by paying a man
adventure to Ireland, where pre-eminent tennis writers, focuses his lens for the use of his name, she will
she’s inherited a grand house. on Nadal, the Spanish force of nature. When write her own out of history. His
Mary, shy and meek, has he arrived on the scene in 2005, the record for name? William Shakespeare.
nothing to look forward to men’s singles titles at the French Open stood
but the dreary life of a maid in at six. Nadal more than doubled that total to Present-day Manhattan. Young
Hampstead. a mind-blowing 14 titles: one of the greatest playwright Melina Green is
sporting achievements in history. determined to see one of her
But when an air raid forces them shows make the stage, but it
to take shelter underground, Nadal won big and won often on all of appears a woman’s voice is
Mary’s life is suddenly changed tennis’s surfaces: securing two Wimbledon still worth less than a man’s.
forever. After waking up in the titles on grass and six on the US Open and So inspired by the life of her
hospital, injured but alive, the Australian Open hard courts. But clay, the ancestor Emilia Bassano, she
nurse mistakes her for Elizabeth grittiest of the game’s playgrounds, is where takes a lesson from history and
and hands over her suitcase with it all came together best for his whipping submits a play under a male
Elizabeth’s money and tickets to forehand and warrior mindset. pseudonym . . .
Ireland inside.
Clarey, who has covered Nadal since he was Women have long been written
This is Mary’s chance to escape 17, draws on interviews over 20 years with out of history, but have they
the hardship of her life and start Nadal, his team and rivals like Roger Federer held the pen all along?
afresh. and Novak Djokovic. Brimming with behind-
the-scenes insight, The Warrior tells the story Price: R275.00
Price: R380.00 of a global sporting icon, interlacing man and
place in a unique, must-read account of the
evolution of excellence.

Price: R485.00

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