to the end with pain

Rafael Nadal will play his 14th final at Roland Garros. And she has never lost any. The feat is of a galactic, cosmic, stellar dimension… It’s been a long time since we ran out of adjectives and comparisons. There are, however, two details that make it something different from its predecessors. The first is that sweet and sour aftertaste who left the painful retirement of Alexander Zverev, when both provided a semifinal that projected legendary. The two gladiators wore three hours and seven minutes of battle and they had not even resolved the second set, which was headed for another tiebreaker, after Nadal’s comeback in the opening round. Nobody likes to win a match this way. That’s why Rafa could not celebrate his pass to the final, nor his 36th birthday, as the occasion deserved.

The second detail is more related to another limp that is not Zverev’s. It’s no longer a secret Nadal drags a chronic ailment in one foot for many years, recently aggravated, who can fight on the track only thanks to the relevant medication, but that limits him in training and even in his daily life. The injury hovered in this edition por every performance and every Rafa statementand there have been a few, who have surrounded by mystery the future of Spanish in tennis, and particularly in Roland Garros. There is a certain feeling, or fear, that each presence of Nadal could be the last. Even if he did not decide to retire, a puzzle that only time will solve, no one can predict how long he will continue to be active. the 21-time Grand Slam winner. I hope he still has a few more years left. But that will be decided by his foot. And his head. That Rafael Nadal play in the Philippe Chatrier is always special, but this Sunday it can be much more… just in case we were before one last dance in paris.