MADRID, 6 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
…because the Spanish tennis player in Paris is something unique, impressive for the reason and the senses. If they made the film of his career at the French Open he would have 14 parts and all of them good. They are 17 years playing finals in the Philippe Chatrier, 112 wins and only 3 losses. A real madness on any scale.
In this part of history, tremendous for Spain, Nadal’s fourteenth Roland Garros will be remembered for the physical sacrifice it involved, for the epic, the glory and for a hard reflection. Also, more direct, for his last three rounds. Djokovic, Zverev and Ruud, the inside story of an athlete capable of leaving the entire world speechless at 36 years old.
The tour on land had left different readings and for the Balearic they were not the most flattering. A broken rib in Indian Wells stopped him dead when he was 20-0, with the Australian Open in his pocket, in 2022 that marked his return after six months without competing. The break reached the gates of the earth, the surface on which Nadal forges his legend every spring.
The one from Manacor had to miss Montecarlo and Barcelona, and reappear in Madrid, where he was not happy about the height. Without filming, with a handful of training sessions, Nadal acknowledged in the capital that his goal was to do a mini preseason thinking about Paris (an important confession when the Balearic never ‘accepted’ questions from Roland Garros in Madrid).
As if that were not enough, his chronic left foot injury, for which he stopped in the middle of 2021, reappeared in the capital and became even more unbearable in Rome. Of that farewell, totally lame, in his second match at the Foro Italico and what it was going to mean, Nadal did not speak until this Sunday he won Roland Garros again.
The one from Manacor arrived with the stripes of his career, but Djokovic, champion in Rome and with good shooting, and Alcaraz, child prodigy, started ahead in the betting. Against the number one, Nadal did it again, he got the highest level from him, without mediocre, for everything and with everything in each point, each game and each set.
Then Zverev played, and not Alcaraz, but the German was another bug on the circuit, an aspiring D’Artagnan among the three musketeers. Sascha tasted the medicine of a Nadal who raised a 2-4 and a 2-6 in the sudden death, especially epic, he saved four set balls and needed six to score an hour and a half sleeve.
In the second, the German served with 3-5 to tie the match and the Spaniard sent him to another sudden death. The battle was headed straight for the Tennis History books but Zverev broke his ankle and left the court in a wheelchair. An abrupt outcome that left Nadal speechless, heading for his fourteenth final in Paris.
Ruud was his rival, a good player, with seven titles on clay, and trained at the Rafa Nadal Academy, but in his first final of a ‘big’. “Facing Rafa in a Roland Garros final is probably the biggest challenge in this sport,” he said in the preview. So it was, there was no end. Nadal had a snack to the Norwegian in three sets.
The emotion, the tears, the incredulity of the player himself were better understood with his subsequent press conference. The one from Manacor, who turned 36 on Friday, played the two weeks in Paris with his foot asleep with injections in the nerve. He plays every day as if he were the last, maybe that’s why he is the king, but his bruised body and a torturous scaphoid corner him more than ever. Even when?