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Social Media Studies: Understanding Nicolás Almagro through his use of Twitter during the month of July 2012

By Juan José on November 14, 2012

Nicolás Almagro is a bit of an enigma to the English-speaking tennis world. A borderline top 10 player, Almagro has made the vast majority of his money on the European and South American red clay: of his 12 career titles and 6 career finals appearances, none have been on a surface other than the often ignored red dirt. Look for yourself. 2012 might be the first year he actually has a winning record on hardcourts: 17 and 11. Still, he has a losing record on the surface when you take his career as a whole: 71 wins and 77 losses.

Given the traditional narrative used to dismiss clay court specialists, you’d think Almagro was nothing but a grinder, someone with little power but endless stamina to track down every shot and win by force of his opponent’s errors rather than his own ability to control points. Almagro’s game couldn’t be further from that: he probably has the most stylish brand of tennis of the Spanish Armada: a beautiful one-handed backhand that comes together with a violent forehand and serve combo. Almagro’s weakness is actually his movement – he finds it hard to get back on the offensive if someone is pushing him away from the baseline.

I’ve always found Almagro’s tennis to be dazzling, and wondered why it was that he couldn’t get it all to work on hard courts. Yes, he likes to take the ball late, and his swings aren’t exactly compact, but the sheer aggression with which he plays tennis, and the power of his great first serve – Almagro ranks fifth in number of aces this season, getting 41% of those aces on CLAY – should translate to hard court success. After all, there are plenty of hard court specialists out there who aren’t exactly great defenders.

In this, Almagro reminds me a lot about Gastón Gaudio, the 2004 French Open champion, who played with beautiful variety, but never found a way to translate all that talent to all-court success. Trying to avoid that fate, Almagro ended his 3 year relationship with the well-respected José Perlas at the end of last year and decided to work with Juan Carlos Ferrero’s team at the former Roland Garros’ academy in Valencia, which is relatively close to Murcia, his home town. Almagro says that the work done with Ferrero’s team was focused on improving his movement on hard courts, and also to improve his ability to earn more free points with his serve.  The hard work has paid off: in looking more agile and more confident on surfaces other than his beloved clay, he made the round of 16 of both the US Open and the Australian Open (losing to his upcoming Davis Cup foe and trash-talker, Tomas Berdych), as well as the quarterfinals of Indian Wells and the round of 16 at Miami. Even though Almagro had a dismal run in Asia (lost in the first round in both Tokyo and Shanghai), he did manage to end the year as the 11th best player in the world.

The narrative about Almagro has always been centered around his inconsistency and unpredictability. You just never know when the Spaniard will lose his mind in a match, sometimes even from winning positions. Moreover, he has always been a sort of outsider of the über-popular Davis Cup team led by Rafael Nadal and anchored by David Ferrer, Feliciano López and Fernando Verdasco. After all, even after a great season like this one, Almagro is only the 3rd highest ranked Spaniard, behind Nadal and Ferrer. In years past he’s been the fourth best, since Verdasco dallied with the top 10 for a while.  It’s only because of Nadal’s injury that Almagro is in Prague with the Spanish Davis Cup team this week. Otherwise, he might have not even made the trip there.

Another reason for his low profile could be the lack of big wins for Almagro: he’s only made a single M1000 SF (in Madrid against Nadal, who he’s never beaten). Similarly, he’s never gone past the quarterfinals at any Slam, losing to Nadal on that stage three times at the French Open. For the Spanish media, what’s the point on focusing on this apparently moody, inconsistent player whose biggest title is Acapulco and comes from a not quite glamorous part of Spain, when you have Nadal, Ferrer and Verdasco to cover? Even the recent success of the López-Granollers doubles team seems more noteworthy.

Geographically, Almagro is also on the periphery of Spain’s imagination, since he’s from Murcia, a region in the south of the country, almost as far from Madrid as it is from Barcelona. An agricultural region, Murcia is most known to me as the place a lot of my Ecuadorian compatriots emigrated in the early 2000s, looking for a better future than the one offered by a country that had just seen its economy collapse.

Regardless, I believe there’s more to Almagro’s outsider status than his results and his origin. The man from Murcia seems to be a complex character, full of interests outside of tennis. For example, architecture: Almagro designed his own house, which he was trying to sell earlier in the year for the only reason that he wants to design and build a bigger one. He seems thoughtful, smart, articulate, vaguely self-aware, and…well, see for yourself:

(For the Spanish speakers out there, here’s a nice two part interview with Almagro after this year’s Australian Open: Part 1 and Part 2, courtesy of Christy from Twitter)

Since YouTube can only give you so many interviews with Almagro, what better way to attempt to understand the many things floating around the man’s head than his use of Twitter? Almagro seems quite fond of tweeting – he uses it almost every day, and you don’t get the sense that some PR guy is managing the account for him. What you get on Almagro’s Twitter feed is 100% unfiltered Nicolás Almagro. Of course, he used to have a blog, in which he once famously defended his case against the Spanish media regarding a Davis Cup issue I can’t now recall (but Christy from Twitter does!), but sadly the blog is down. So Twitter is the best way I can think of trying to navigate the various layers to this enigmatic character of the ATP.

To narrow the scope of this Social Media Study, I decided to take a look at the many facets of Nicolás Almagro during his prolific tweeting during the month of July of this year. Even though it’s only one month, believe me when I tell you that it’s plenty of data to analyze, since it included three tournaments and a trip to see the Spanish national team play at Euro 2012. So, without further ado, here’s a look into the happenings of Nicolás Almagro’s life during a single month of 2012:

July 1st:

Almagro heads to Kiev, to witness the Spanish National Soccer team’s eventual triumph at Euro 2012. This is the first of several funny Almagro pictures that he’s more than happy to share. Notice the “peace” sign. This will become relevant later.

July 9th:

Almagro relishing his last few moments at home, waiting to go to Bastad. He says he’s “in the mood” for that “very great tournament”. Bastad?

July 12th:

Translation: “The mentally insane open the roads that will later be used by the wise”. This quote seemingly comes out of nowhere, but shows a side of Almagro that’s quite common on Twitter: his fondness for philosophical and motivational phrases. I’m not sure who he’s referring to in this tweet – probably he just liked the thought of outliers paving the way for others.

Later that same day, this:

Almagro was starting to struggle with a shoulder injury. Bastad started on July 9th, which had to be a Monday. This means that this picture had to be after his second match in Sweden, a hard-fought three-set win against compatriot Daniel Gimeno-Traver.

July 13:

No text from Almagro on this one. Here’s the translation of the text on the image: “You know my name, but not my story. You’ve heard about what I’ve done, but not what I’ve been through. You know where I am, but not where I come from. You see me laughing, but you don’t know about the times I’ve suffered. Stop judging me. Knowing my name does not mean you know me”.

This has to be the most Almagro thing ever. It’s full of frustration at being misunderstood, at being easily judged. If anything, I’m surprised he didn’t come up with that text himself. Or maybe he did.

However, later on that same day we get this:

Apparently playing Parcheesi on an iPad is a thing among Spaniards. I thought they were all about the Playstation. Also, note how Almagro doesn’t hesitate to photobomb his own picture.

To me, it’s classic Almagro to start the day tweeting a super emo quote and then follow it up with a goofy picture of himself playing Parcheesi. Because…why not?

July 14th

Translation: “The best thing that can happen to you in life is to know that wherever you are someone will ALWAYS remember you”.

Bastad must have been intense for Almagro, because there are a lot of feelings on these tweets. I have no idea what the quote above means, though. I also like how Almagro uses ellipses instead of quotation marks for his inspirational tweets.

It was a happy day for Almagro, because he made the Bastad final despite his iffy shoulder. After many excited tweets on this day, he introduces us to his physical trainer:

July 15:

No inspirational quote today: just an awful song. Almagro claims to be hooked on this song, which he’s listened to for the first time on this day, and that it contains a lot of truths. The title means “If I tell you the truth”. Almagro’s YouTube link doesn’t work in the US, but you can listen to this atrocity of a song here. Still, tweeting about music is another common thread in Almagro’s feed. Like I said, he’s a man of many interests.

I assume that previous tweet was before the Bastad final, which Almagro lost to Ferrer handily (Related: Ferrer is 12-0 in career meetings with Almagro. Also related: Almagro is 1 for 31 against the current top 5 of the ATP. The lone win? 2008 Roland Garros vs Murray). After a few tweets talking about how superior Ferrer was and how great his week was despite his shoulder issues, we get a look at that shoulder:

That picture is interesting for a number of reasons. First, you can see how slight Almagro is, which is a testament to his hard work in 2012, given that he once got called “Alfatso” by the crowd in Acapulco. Second, that shoulder looks bad. You’d think Almagro took the week off after Bastad, right? Wrong – he made the semis of Hamburg.

July 16:

After tweeting that he didn’t know how his shoulder would react in Hamburg and even that he wasn’t sure whether he was going to play or not, we get this:

Translation: “Life is so pretty that it even looks like it’s real”.

I don’t know what that means. At all.

July 18:

Translation: “This ball has less life in it than my grandmother’s female neighbor…Samuel lopez”. Almagro is not happy with the balls being used in Hamburg? Who is Samuel López? Almagro’s coach, that’s who! (Thanks, Tweeps!)

Later that day, more music, and some Spanglish:

Translation to the first part of the tweet: “Why I love this song”. The problem here is that you can’t tell whether he’s asking a question or making a statement. Probably the former, even given the lack of proper punctuation. Anyway, I have no idea who this pianist is, but the song is indeed quite pretty. I have no idea why Almagro loves it, and it’s kinda funny to think that he might listen to this quiet little piano song after that horrible neo-merengue disaster he tweeted about earlier.

Still, after sort of complaining about the balls in Hamburg and the emo piano song, Almagro does manage to tweet a picture of himself and his team:

Looks like a pretty happy guy. But we’re not done for the day!

Where does he find these things? Again – WE’RE NOT DONE FOR THE DAY!

I feel like all athletes like Gladiator. Almagro thinks this scene is “sublime”. But this is not the last tweet for July 18th. We get more music!

Translation: “Good night, everybody…I bid you farewell with this song that will make me remember many things”. This is fascinating. After tacky neo-merengue crap and instrumental piano, Almagro links to this live performance by a Spanish Sheryl Crow of sorts. I tell you, this man has many, many facets. What is the song about? The title translates as “Let me”, and it talks about a female who is struggling with letting go and falling in love with someone, because that would mean losing all sort of control over herself. I think. I’m actually not sure. Who knows. What memories does this song trigger in Almagro, only he can tell. It’s not a terrible song, though.

July 19:

Another day, another inexplicable “quote”:

Translation: “…Nobody better than yourself so that everybody else knows what you are…all yours”. This makes my brain hurt. So does the next tweet from that day:

Australia? In July? Why not? One more tweet for July 19:

Translation: “What a blow! All the best for our number one Rafa Nadal, I hope you come back at your best level soon. A hug and cheer up”. I’m guessing this is the day when Nadal announced that he wouldn’t be playing at the Olympics. I love how half the tweet is a personal wish addressed to nobody in particular, but then it switches to a more direct tone towards Nadal. Apparently Almagro is unaware that Nadal is on Twitter, since he could’ve just included the ailing Spaniard’s handle in this well-meaning tweet.

July 20:

On this day, Almagro faced Juan Mónaco in the Hamburg semis. He would lose in three, but didn’t miss an opportunity for another musical recommendation, preceded by a “Have fun” message:

However, we get another glimpse into the mind of a top athlete as they get pumped for a big match:

He tweeted the same scene from “300” moments later, but in English. I’m using the Spanish version here, just to highlight the weird custom in the big European countries like Spain, France and Germany of dubbing all movies not in their native languages. “300” sounds quite funny in Spanish from Spain. Still, the motivational ploy didn’t work, as I mentioned earlier.

July 21:

Translation (Almagro’s words): “Today can be a great day…enjoy it!”
Translation (image text): “We aren’t born to be perfect, but to live perfect moments”. This is a picture of Fernando Torres and what I assume are his children after winning any of the three big soccer tournaments Spain has won in the past four years. Interestingly enough, we didn’t get a single tweet about Almagro’s loss to Mónaco. I guess this will have to do.

July 27:

After a lengthy absence from the Twitterverse we get this:

Translation: “Hi everybody here we are at Wimbledon, waiting for tomorrow’s debut, a week in which I spent a lot of time with @Pacomartinezmtn who helped me..”

If you click on the Twitter handle Almagro references, you see that it’s a doctor from Murcia who specializes in trauma and orthopedic surgery. At some point he was going to have that shoulder looked at by a doctor, no? On this busy day for Almagro, we also get one of his inspirational quotes:

Translation: “…when you love what you have, you have everything you want…” I guess. He did tweet a translated version of this later in the day, though. And we get more music!

Somehow, it makes perfect sense that the person who tweeted that horrific merengue crap earlier in the month would now tweet a cover of “Call me maybe”. Of course. A cover! He says “Enjoying it…”. Really? Almagro is as unpredictable on the tennis court as he is with his musical recommendations.

July 28:

Almagro is psyched about his Olympic debut:

The World Number 11 did fairly well in London: made the quarters, where he fell 4 and 1 to the eventual Gold medal winner Andy Murray. Not too shabby at all.

July 29:

Translation: “Good morning with rhythm…enjoy it…”. And yes, that’s the same “Call me maybe” cover from two days ago. This makes perfect sense. The Spanglish also makes a lot of sense.

Later in the day, we get this:

Translation: “You are spectacular, @titatorro!!! You have us flipping out and we’re phenomenally excited! Enjoy it! US Open is next! A kiss”

Apparently, María Teresa (Tita) Torró Flor is a 19-year old Spaniard who also trains at Ferrero’s academy. She just cracked the top 100 in the WTA. Who knew – Almagro supports Spanish women’s tennis.

Of course, we couldn’t be left without the day’s motivational nugget:

Translation: “…You can’t put limits on something, how much you dream is how far you’ll go…”.

Sure.

July 30:

This song is just awful. One of the participants is also the guy responsible for the neo-merengue awfulness at the start of the month. Coming full circle, eh Almagro?

Later that day, the token…philosophical? Inspirational? Weird? Quote:

Translation: “The noise from a kiss is not as loud as the noise from a cannon, but its echo lasts a lot longer”.

OK, then.

Not satisfied with that, we get another quote:

Translation: “HOPE is wishing for something to happen, FAITH is believing that it will happen and COURAGE is making it happen”.

That makes sense, no?

July 31:

Almagro’s busiest day on Twitter begins with a little bit of sportsmanship:

Translation: “Good morning, people! It seems like it’s going to be a long day here, the sky is very overcast!!! I just want to wish everybody who plays today good luck!”. And then “Peace and rock and roll. This is a historic occurrence: “Peace and Love” will become a staple of Almagro’s tweets in the following months.

The continues with some love for the WTA and Murcia:

I had no idea that María José Martínez Sánchez was from the same region of Spain as Almagro, who calls Martínez Sánches a “phenomenon”.

And now come a lot of food related tweets involving Xavi Segura, someone who works for the Spanish Davis Cup team in some capacity (here’s his actual occupation, thanks to Genny from Twitter):

Translation: “What are you doing, @XS_XaviSegura? You get in and then I get in and we’ll take a little bath with the dishes! HAHAHAHAH! #crazyness”

My reaction: ….

Translation: This is how @XS_XaviSegura and I began the afternoon.

OK…

Translation: “And this is how we are right now…@XS_XaviSegura a Nutella one?”

…

Translation: “Woudl D’Artagnan be an Olympic champion, @XS_XaviSegura? HAHAHAHAHA!”

Nicolás Almagro the Twitter comedian, everybody! Also, he’s “telling” these jokes to someone who is right there with him.

Translation (Segura’s tweet): “Since we don’t have love, these look good…eh, @NicoAlmagro??? Vvvvvv #NutellaSponsorUs!!”
Translation (Almagro’s reply): “Hahahaha! @XS_XaviSegura we’ll surely eat these…hahahaha, this is a good one, man…uffffffhahahahah”

*still speechless*

We end the month on a pretty normal note, though:

Thanks, Pau.

*****

So there you are, a month’s worth of Nicolás Almagro tweets. Is he more familiar to you now? Does he make more sense? Do you have a new appreciation for him? Does your head hurt?

Mine does. But you can see that Nicolás Almagro isn’t easily defined – he’s a man of many moods, of many tastes. However, you do sense that he’s a strange mixture of an introvert as well as someone who clearly enjoys being goofy. Not your standard tennis player, that’s for sure.

PS: Christy from Twitter alerted me to this: Nicolás Almagro was asked in an interview what he thought about gay players on tour, and he provided a very sensible and direct answer. Hopefully more players take his lead on this issue.


Juan José loves a well struck backhand down the line, statistics that tell a story, a nice lob winner, and competent returns of serve.

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11 Responses

  1. Matt Zemek
    Matt Zemek November 14, 2012 at 11:50 pm |

    Juan Jose,

    When you tweeted about the possibility of not surviving this Almagro piece, I wondered how and why you could have arrived at such a psychological stage.

    I wonder no more.

    (This is perpetually fascinating content — from you and everyone. So great.)

    1. Juan José
      Juan José November 15, 2012 at 1:09 pm |

      Thanks, Matt! And I’m glad you see that I wasn’t exaggerating. I’m glad you like our assorted variety of writing!

  2. Poorna
    Poorna November 15, 2012 at 6:06 am |

    Must have taken quite a hell lot of time to do this..awesome! 🙂

    1. Juan José
      Juan José November 15, 2012 at 1:11 pm |

      IT DID! I literally spent all afternoon looking at tweets and looking stuff up. Naturally, I forgot to look up the coach’s name. I blame Almagro’s musical selections.

      1. Poorna
        Poorna November 15, 2012 at 11:47 pm |

        Oh yeah!forgot that you had to listen to his songs too.. I pity you 😀

  3. Fernando
    Fernando November 15, 2012 at 9:40 am |

    Fernando says, yes we know Nico well. Interesting insight provided in this piece.

    What fans must understand is that not all professional tennis players live and die to win titles or become No.1. This is not by any stretch intended to be a criticism or value judgment. We should all do in life what make us the happiest, no?

    Players like Maestro, The Bull and Djoker get their happiness living and breathing tennis. Serena Williams, for example, has many other interests and has been unfairly criticized for her commitment to the sport. Who are these people to tell Serena how to run her life?

    Has Nico fulfilled his potential as a tennis player, perhaps, not. But this is his choice and if a more balanced and nuanced life makes his happy, this is all that matters.

    I am Fernando @vivafernando

    1. Juan José
      Juan José November 15, 2012 at 3:20 pm |

      I am very glad Fernando enjoyed this little foray into Nicolás Almagro’s head! I completely agree with everything you say, which is not surprising.

      What I will say is that I really don’t think there’s anything about Almagro’s various interests that has caused his relative under-achievement. I just think he’s lacked the confidence necessary to win the big matches in the big tournaments, and he certainly lacked any and all confidence on surfaces other than clay until this year. However, I do think he’s turned the corner, and I feel fairly confident predicting that Almagro will make one or two hard court finals before he retires.

      Tennis is such a mental game, no? And confidence is the biggest asset you can have.

  4. Fog Mountain
    Fog Mountain November 15, 2012 at 11:57 am |

    Almagro also had winning hardcourt records in 2011 (13-12) and 2010 (15-13).

  5. triplebagel
    triplebagel November 15, 2012 at 12:26 pm |

    Thanks for this great article, haha. It’s funny to see so many Nico tweets in succession. I wonder how much people’s appreciation of him has changed over the time he’s been on twitter. It probably did wonders.

    Also, Nico openly supports the idea of gay players on tour, which I think is awesome. <3

    http://triplebagel.tumblr.com/post/22429106347/question-nico-im-a-great-follower-of-yours-do

    Thanks again!

  6. PeggyPepper
    PeggyPepper November 15, 2012 at 10:05 pm |

    Well that was a fascinating and funny trip into the mind of one of my favorite characters on tour. His questionable music taste is balanced by his appreciation of WTA tennis and comments on gay players. And I am amused that he is like an earnest love lorn liberal arts student in his choice of quotes.

  7. Jenn
    Jenn January 26, 2013 at 2:25 pm |

    Thanks. I always found his demeanor on TV rather bland… you’ve made me take a second look. BTW, I live in Spain and he definitely get’s no love on Spanish TV or the press (without Nadal tennis has nearly fallen off the planet here!)

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