Guido Pella, months after being a father: “The demands of tennis make your head need a break”

The life of Guido Pella It took a 180° turn in recent months. Without playing since October 2021, his priorities changed when he found out, in January of this year, that he would become Arianna’s father along with Stephanie Demner, His couple. With the model and influencer, the 32-year-old from Bahiense was going to get married in September 2020, although the pandemic prevented it. Coronavirus, truncated marriage, news of pregnancy, problems in one of his knees. Too many things together in such a short time made the tennis player decide to stop the ball and think. And so he tells it in an interview with TN.

More than six months after your last match, how are you living this time away from tennis while undergoing treatment on one of your knees?

-The truth is good. It is the first moment in which I have not played for so long, beyond what happened in the pandemic. The knee had been complicated for a long time, especially since the end of 2021. The pain was very recurrent, it didn’t let me play well. My game is about counter attacking, defending and it was getting difficult for me. They are slow treatments. When I try to play a little and push myself, it hurts. Out there not so much for normal life but for tennis. I had to stop to at least try to extend my career.

And how does it go through from the mental? How much did the fact that you are going to be a father influence you?

-A lot changed. My idea was to try to stop last year and start well in 2022 with the tournaments in Australia, but the first weeks I did not adapt well to the treatment, my knee swelled, I was still in a lot of pain. The following month I found out that I was going to be a father and the plans changed. I had to try to be with my partner as much time as possible, dedicate another place to him. I’m at a point where I have to stop a little bit, my brain asked me to do that and I’m trying to listen to it for the first time in my life.

Pablo Brunetto entrevista to Guido Pella (TN)

Why hadn’t you heard it before?

-What I always say: the maelstrom of tennis. If you ask all tennis players, no one knows what’s going on around their career. Tennis is a sport that requires you to be selfish, because you are alone on the court, it requires you to think about your problems and not about others because if you don’t, you don’t have the mental strength to win. When I found out that I was going to be a father, added to the injury, I was able to stop for the first time and ideas that I hadn’t had before began to come to me.

What are you not willing to give up on your return?

-The reality is that I learned that if you come back, you have to resign everything. You can’t do it halfway at this level that is being played. We are in the best moment in the history of tennis, with the best three still active, with many young people who are in the top 10, top 5 and that makes it more and more difficult for one. You get bigger and bigger, there are more kids who are hungrier and it’s difficult because I’m almost 32 years old. I know that if I go back it will be without seeing my family, without seeing my daughter, traveling for weeks and weeks and that is what I am trying to process internally… Knowing if I am willing to do it.

And are you willing?

-You have to be. The idea is to try to try again one more time. I know that tennis is fine, but the mental part still needs to be adjusted a couple of things.

In this maelstrom of which you speak, do you get to enjoy something?

-Not particularly. And I don’t think anyone would tell you otherwise. When you have a bad week you have to focus on the next one and when you have a good one, you play the next day. So it’s all so fast that it’s hard to sit back and say, “Look, I’m getting good results.” Only at the end of last year did I have the opportunity to ask myself “this is what I want, this is happening to me”.

One imagines that for a tennis player the most is the Davis Cup… is it like that or does it fall into the bag of the maelstrom?

-He ends up entering the same bag. It is true that in the Davis Cup you are playing series and you have the chance to highlight who you are beating, but the next week you are competing back on the circuit. 6, 5 years passed… (-he doesn’t remember exactly-) and just today one enjoys it more, but at that time, and I’ve talked about it with other colleagues, we didn’t have the chance to enjoy it.

Doesn’t tennis allow you to relax in that sense?

-Nah (sighs, as if resigned). The times that I tried to say: “Well, now I enjoy myself”, were the worst moments of my career. When one relaxes it is difficult to find that level of concentration that is required. One week that you lower the intensity, it goes up in what follows and you lose confidence, the ranking.

Is it played more for work than for passion?

-Yes… yes (reconfirms). I don’t remember the last moment I enjoyed it as a sport. Let’s see, I like tennis, I love playing it but when you take it as a job, with all the pressures and the things that nobody tells you, it becomes difficult to continue on a day-to-day basis. Imagine that you have to take an exam every day. If you do poorly, you fail and keep kicking. The pressure with which we tennis players live is very high and one loses sight of how beautiful sport is. Every day you get up with the responsibility of not losing points, ranking… The demands of tennis make your head one day need a break.

You’ve even moved away from tennis…

-Yes, in 2014. It wasn’t giving me the happiness I was looking for and I understood that it was a job and I had to do it the same way as anyone in their field. I was suffering from it at different times in which the results were not given.

While the European clay-court tour is taking place, some Argentine tennis players are training at the Racket Club in Palermo. Pella stops for a moment to greet Juan Manuel Cerúndolo (123rd) and Thiago Tirante (206th) and his coaches, who are rallying on field 1 of the venue. Argentine tennis is undergoing an important replacement and it generates great enthusiasm for the Bahian.

How do you see the new generation of tennis?

-I said it a long time ago and people laughed at me at the time: Argentina has a spectacular litter of boys. I have been saying it for 5 years and now those who were 13, 14 years old are beginning to play well. Seba Báez is already in the top 40, Tomás Etcheverry entered the Top 100, Juanma (for Cerúndolo –he points out while training-) has already won her first title. Since they are younger than me, I don’t know them on a day-to-day basis, but I know they have a great friendship and that’s important. We have to see if they can sustain it over time, because I know what the competition is doing and those rispidities, but I wish them the best. There is nothing that I like more than Argentine tennis continues to be in the foreground.

And what about the international ones?

-Imagine what changed tennis that some young people like Zverev, Tsitsipas are no longer such when they are 23, 24 years old… When I started playing, I got into the top 100 at 22 years old and there were no kids 18, 19 years old. Since Federer, Nadal and Djokovic appeared, it became very difficult to get into the top 100. Many young players like Alcaraz appeared… (stops) well, let’s not tell Carlitos because he is one of a kind. And the best thing is that they will be around for another 10 years.

You played with all three (Nadal, Roger and Djokovic)… which one did you enjoy the most and which one did you have the worst time with?

-Enjoy with everyone. It’s like any sport. How to deal with Messi and Ronaldo. I suffered from all four (NdR: adds Andy Murray) but the worst thing is that Nadal touched me at Roland Garros, Federer at Wimbledon… They were matches on their favorite surfaces.

What did you think of the Wimbledon decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players?

I understand both sides. It’s a horror what’s happening and it shouldn’t happen anymore but I know Russian and Ukrainian tennis players and I don’t think any of them want war. Making that decision of that magnitude, affecting tennis players, I don’t think will solve the problem. It was rushed, without consensus and I think something else should have been done.

The last time you played in Moscow you had an ugly episode with gamblers… What do you feel when after a match you have the mailbox full of messages insulting you?

-If it were only that… I feel sorry for those people. The issue is when they start to threaten you. They are trolls, none of them have a photo or followers, all behind a screen. You block it and that’s it, but it’s hard to accept it. And even more so on the field, when you see them betting while it is prohibited. It generates a greater rejection. One makes the complaint once, twice but you already say: “It has no case”.

Disney, the fun of Guido Pella

You go to Disney often, is it your place in the world?

-There are people who go to the beach after a tournament. I’m going to Disney. It’s my way of disconnecting. Each one does what they feel and makes them happy to disconnect from the moment. But it’s one or two days and then back to training.

And in your career, did you ever feel “like Disney”?

-Yes… I was lucky enough to have excellent moments, like in the Davis Cup, in 2019 when I won my first title (NdR: at the ATP 250 in São Paulo, beating Christian Garín 7-5 and 6-3) quarters in Wimbledon, a very good European tour… Those tournaments are the ones that make you enjoy yourself more than average and make the effort worthwhile.

Closing a party or asking for marriage: which is more difficult

Is it more difficult to close a match or ask your girlfriend to marry you?

-Uh, ha. Everything outside of tennis is more difficult. On the court I do things that sometimes I don’t know where they come from. And it’s about training every day and doing the same thing, but you take me off the court and everything gets complicated, heh.

You are “famous” and your partner is too, do you miss something of anonymity?

I have always considered myself a very calm person. I know that I am with a person who is even much better known than me. What’s more, we go to the street or to an event and they greet her (she pretends to stand to one side watching how they ask her partner for photos) and not me. And I’m happy with that. I don’t like people to recognize me but not in a bad way, but if I’m with friends I love being able to be calm. I know that because of my work and that of my partner we are more exposed than to some people, but I like my life like this, without people knowing what I do or what I like.

What do you dream of for your return?

-I would like my knee to start playing for me (smiles) and to be able to play for a couple more years, calm, without feeling pain. Later, if tennis gives me and I pick up the pace, I know I’m going to start playing again against the best.

Would you like your daughter to see you on a court?

-I don’t know if it will arrive because there are several years left, ha. But yes, even if you see me crawling…