Paula Ormaechea, former number 1 from Argentina in the WTA tennis ranking, he published an emotional letter on his social networks this Sunday. The santafesina responded to criticism for the sporting present of her and opened his heart to show the dark side of an athlete’s career.
In his case, the impact of the death of his father and how she, four months later, is still trying “find meaning again and enjoy life”.
Ormaechea, 29, is one of the Argentines who have animated the women’s tennis circuit in the last decade. In October 2013, at the age of 21, she reached the position 59 of the WTA ranking, the best record of his career. In those years, she was a finalist in a WTA 250 tournament in Colombia, where she lost to Serbian Jelena Jankovic, then top 20 and then number 1 in the world.
Today Ormaechea is in the position 162, just lost in the first round of an ITF W60 tournament in Rome and this year he fell in the first rounds of qualifying at the Roland Garros and Wimbledon Grand Slams. Her poor results aroused the surprise of many tennis fans, but her sports performance is a secondary concern in her personal life, as she herself explained in the letter.
Paula Ormaechea and her father, Marcelo. instagram photo
“Today is 4 months, 4 months of most horrible day that I had to live to today”, begins the text that he spread on his Twitter and Instagram accounts and that he presented as “Over and out”.
“I just want to ask a little more respectbecause when they talk about Paula, the one who plays tennis, they are talking about me, about me before anything else. I am a simple person, and like all of you I have feelings“, continues Ormaechea, based in Italy, where in 2018 she married the volleyball player Luciano De Cecco.
“I am not a machine, I’m trying to figure out how to pull this all offwith the greatest pain that can be had, “adds the tennis player, who accompanied her message with a photo in which her father and the three sisters are seen.
Paula Ormaechea with her father, Marcelo, and her two sisters.
“Only someone who has been through a similar situation will know and understand what it means to live grieving the loss of a father. I lost mine from one moment to the next, without him having had a health problem or something that announced his departure in advance. There was no chance to ‘say goodbye’just a call with that news,” he elaborated on the death.
Marcelo (59 years old) was a rwell-known former footballer from the local league in Reconquista, the town north of Santa Fe where Gabriel Batistuta also grew up. He lived in Sunchales, he had attended the family kiosk and, after marrying Mirna, he dedicated himself to promoting his three daughters: Paula, Sofía and Valentina.
He helped Paula fulfill her dream in tennis. She reflected her fatherly devotion in her official WTA profile: “The person he most admires is his father, Marceloboth for his mentality and for his outlook on life”.
According to the local newspaper Reconquest TodayMarcelo felt bad on Sunday morning, March 20. He was treated at the Sunchales Hospital. He went back to his house. In the afternoon he felt sick again. He asked to go back to the hospital. But, with no answers, they found him dead in his bed at night after suffering a aneurysm.
Paula Ormaechea and her father: “The lights went out, I’m without much direction”
The tennis player he was in Colombia when his father died. She took a flight and was present at Marcelo’s last goodbye. Today, four months later, he continues to deal with the emptiness that the loss left him: “I fall every day, I get up again, sometimes I laugh, I cry a lot and I get just as desperate because sometimes it seems that nothing happens anymore”.
Paula Ormaechea had already gone through a sports slump, caused by an injury and a long recovery after undergoing surgery.
“These last few years as a person I have had to live everything, very nice things and others a little less. It cost me a lot, but I kept going until at one point something changed and I was able to start enjoying the sport that I love so much,” he said about those ups and downs.
However, in March a new blow came. “That’s how it was going, until 4 months ago. Since that day, the house of cards I was building fell apart, the lights went out and here I am without much direction. There is no way or way or times, there is nothing marked. It is one walking trying not to stop completely because maybe that’s even worse.
After explaining his situation and his priorities, Ormaechea also referred to the criticism for his level. “Between all this, I play tennis, a super re against mental sportthat perhaps few understand how important it is to be in emotional balance to be able to perform at a high level,” he said about the demands.
“I appreciate you guys worrying that I’m not going to win a game. And it’s not that I’m in bad shape or anything, I’m just on a quest to find meaning again and enjoy the life. Tennis is a sport, and as important as it is in my life, it is not not the only thing, not everything for meOrmaechea concluded.
Ormaechea: “My longest and most beautiful moment of this life”
Since Marcelo’s death, Paula Ormaechea shared on her Instagram account portraits and memories of his father. “We are here for a good time, not a long time. My longest and most beautiful moment of this life,” he wrote after the death of his father. Both are seen embracing, smiling, after a tennis match.
A month later, he deepened his feelings and that of almost all the children. “my biggest fear It was always thinking about what I would do the day my parents were no more, what it would be like. Never, not even in the worst of dreams I could not even have imagined that the person with the most energy and will to live was going to turn off from one moment to the next, so soon”.
And he concluded: “Your absence feels very strongand 28 days ago the void became a hole that will never be filled. I miss you every minute, dad.”.
also went up a video in which she is seen happy, going to greet her father, in one of the many games that he waited for her after a game, on the side of the field.
DS
