There are two tournaments that Rafael Nadal (34) has never won.
One is the Masters Cup, the title that brings together the eight rackets of the year. And the other, the Paris-Bercy Masters.
Both are disputed in the fall, and that’s a bad time for Nadal: Usually, the Spaniard arrives here melted, weighed down by his intense phase of earth and the closing of the US Open, at the turn of the summer.
“Is that why you’re here?” Why do you have this pending account? –The Parisian press asked him on Sunday, in his presentation to the media.
– I play because I want to play and because I have played little this year. I did well at Roland Garros and I am looking forward to continuing to do so. With the team we decided that it was the right calendar for the present and the future –Answered Nadal, on whose horizon, tomorrow, Feliciano López appears.
Feliciano López beat Krajinovic 7-6 (11) and 6-1 to access the second round, where Nadal awaits him (CIRO DE LUCA / Reuters)
If you ask Nadal how it is possible that nobody coughs him in June, at Roland Garros (thirteen titles add up in the Bois de Boulogne, the impossible), and instead there is no way that he will break through in Paris-Bercy, 10 kilometers east in a straight line, Nadal raises an eyebrow and answers with a jerk:
–It is another tournament, another surface, there is nothing like it, only that we are in the same city, but life is different when facing the tournament. We are in Paris, one of the most beautiful cities in the world although we cannot enjoy it, but we can play tennis, which in these times is a great luck.
Pending business
Nadal, who has thirteen titles at Roland Garros, meets Feliciano López 10 km from Bois de Boulogne
And here we are, this is the Nadal of the present, the same one that raises unanimous praise throughout the world.
The Tao of Rafael Nadal, wrote The New York Times in October, after his victorious stint at Roland Garros. He spoke of an empathetic Nadal, undoubtedly more mature, a tennis player willing to be more than that, aware of his role as a social model.
–Don’t forget, you’re just a guy who passes balls over a net –His uncle, Toni Nadal, used to tell him.
What happens is that, today, every word of Rafael Nadal goes to mass.
And that certainty is not going to obviate it (and it should not).
The Paris that today welcomes the tennis family does so with a heavy heart, even more so than it had already done in October, in the days of Roland Garros. If then tennis players were cloistered in two hotels and bars and cafes were closed, today there is already a full-blown night curfew.
Not a soul can look out at the Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, on whose rapid surface a range of talents swirl, even if Djokovic, Federer or Thiem don’t, three Top 5.
–It is a gift to play against Rafa. The pity is that the pavilion will be empty. At this point in my career, I would have liked to play against the best in history, a friend, with a full stadium. But I will enjoy it the same without an audience – said Feliciano López, in a message that sounds like something else, at least in the medium term.
He’s already 36 years old.
