BarcelonaDuring a tennis match of a Grand Slam tournament so many things happen that one could write treatises on philosophy just about that duel. Rafa Nadal is back in a Roland Garros final, where he has won the 13 times he has played and where he aspires to grow a legend that began in the distant 2005. At the age of 36, the player from Manacor goes to the final with serious face, almost feeling guilty. He was winning the semi-final, but when the match was better, the German Alexander Zverev, the world number 3, was injured trying to reach a Christmas ball. Her ankle sprained and Zverev got into a wheelchair off the center court. The rival in Sunday’s final (3pm / Eurosport and DAZN) will be 23-year-old Norwegian Casper Ruud.
Nadal, in the back, was helping him with his bags and snowshoes. Never before had a victory in a semifinal been celebrated so little. “I’m very sad. Zverev was playing a great game, I know how hard he has worked to try to win a Grand Slam. I wish him the best; one day he will win a Grand Slam tournament. More than one, in fact,” he said. Nadal, who had won the first set in the tie-break for 7-6. And the second was aimed at the same destination, as the ball that Zverev could not return was used to make it 6-6 on the scoreboard. Three hours of play and they couldn’t even finish two sets.
Christmas has started badly. Zverev looked like a machine, cold, calculating. With a first service almost perfect and dominant with pipes, commanding in the middle of the track. His right arm seemed to be made of a metallurgy. The Hamburg player has been labeled for years as one of the most promising players hanging from the gold chains around his neck. But he always ends up failing, unable to control himself. In tennis, you have a lot of coaches, dietitians and racket ropes specialists working for you, but when it comes to the truth, it’s a solitary sport. Like a duel in the sun between two rivals in the Far West, at the doors of a roadside bar. And here, Christmas is the best. Zverev, on the other hand, always ends up losing his temper, famous for his bad temper, which leads him to smash his rackets, argue with the referees or star in out-of-place incidents.
Nadal specializes in survival. And he was waiting for his moment to make a Zverev nervous who started to miss easy balls. Alone in the middle of the court, with everything in favor, he sent the balls into the net or too far. Nadal already had the game where he wanted it. And yet, Zverev saved three of seven balls to force one tie-break in which it has been placed 6-2 in favor. He had already done it, the German. But Christmas’s mental strength is supernatural. Sometimes it seems like a trick: try to win in the most difficult scenarios. The Manacor player saved six of seven balls with a repertoire of incredible points, and came to every stroke of a Zverev who understood that he had Christmas on the big occasions. Sergi Bruguera’s disciple had already warned him in the previous one. “When Nadal plays Roland Garros he’s a different player. Even better.”
In the second set, both players decided to turn the game into a Greek tragedy, a Homeric epic to reflect on mental strength, on fears, on how to react when everything seemed lost. If the first set saw two cold players and calculators, the second was emotional, with the first four games ending with a service break. Zverev, despite knowing that in front of him was a player who knows how to play with the mind of the opponent, pulling him out of the exhaust exhausting all the time he has to serve, reaching all the balls the party until the tie break. But just before, when he slipped on the clay to return a ball, his ankle turned into an Achilles heel. The German ended up crying, frustrated, aware that he would not even have a chance to lose by fighting. Nadal has ended up disoriented, not knowing how to celebrate a historic milestone: returning to a final in Paris, when a few days ago he was lame.
The final, against a student from his Academy
Nadal’s rival will be the Norwegian Casper Ruud, the executioner of the Croatian Marin Cilic in the semifinals (3-6, 6-4, 6-2 and 6-2). Ruud, 23, lives for the sport. In fact, his father was the Norwegian player who had reached the top of tennis until the arrival of this young man who five years ago made the decision to leave precisely to Mallorca, to enroll in the Academy of Rafa Christmas. A sign of the times: Christmas will be played to win a title against a student of his Academy.
Rudd’s challenge will be to achieve something that no one has ever achieved before: defeating Nadal in the Philippe-Chatrier track final. The manacorí – who is already the second most veteran player to reach the final, only behind the American Bill Tilden, who had 37 in 1930 – has won the 13 finals he has played. And if he won this one, he would surpass the most veteran champion to date, the Catalan Andrés Gimeno, who had 34 in 1972. In men’s tennis, no other player has won the Grand Slam 10 times or more. Djokovic is the closest, with 9 titles in Australia. Nadal already has 13 titles at Roland Garros and is now looking for the 14th, just in the season when he says with his small mouth that he will let it be, tired of the injuries that mortify him. Injuries that make him suffer until he arrives in Paris and transforms. The central track, who used to whistle at him because he didn’t understand that cheeky young man who was bouncing and shouting, now asks him to continue for another year.
Christmas, however, is a wounded giant. The chronic injury to his left foot martyred him every day in the world. “Right now I’m signing to lose the final, but having a new foot. Living with this injury is not easy. I’m thinking about the future, when I’m retired, and I wish I could play sports with friends. Right now, I don’t know if “It’s not easy to live with the pain. I haven’t trained much in the last few months and now I notice it physically. I have to learn how to dose myself, I can’t reach all the balls anymore,” he warned after a semifinal where both players ended up with a grimace of pain. Zverev, for the injury that leaves him unable to continue competing. Christmas, for this injury with which he has learned to live.
