Sarah Smiles (Castellón de la Plana, 26 years old) is attentive to everything. She looks at the clock because she has training at the Chamartín Tennis Club and she had arranged for 1:00 p.m. and she doesn’t want to be late. There is time to have a chat with the ambassador of Nara Seguros about her scaphoid injury in her right foot, which has stopped her since September, and about tennis and her life. She already sees the light at the end of the tunnel and she plans to return on clay in Bogotá the week of April 3.
How is the feeling of being close to returning?
Above all, it is a lot of happiness to be on the track, the desire to work and to improve those things that I know I need to continue working on. It is to go day by day, calmly and above all enjoying this process.
Have you spent many days without touching the racket?
Yes, practically four months.
Its alot. Is there a good part because it helps to reset?
Well, it has the part that you enter totally free, totally new, but logically it has had bad moments and tennis needs its recovery time.
You don’t forget giving a forehand even if you haven’t touched the racket for four months…
I have been able to verify that it is not forgotten, but in your head you think that it is going to be forgotten, and that is sometimes difficult.
What do you learn from such an injury?
It teaches you that there is more life apart from tennis, yes, that tournaments are being played, but people continue to lead their normal lives and nothing happens. It teaches you to be patient, calm, to experience other things that you have not been able to experience during your sports career. And well, to try to carry it as best as possible.
“In tennis you lose every week, but you have to take it as a learning experience”
His career has always gone up and he has been installed in the elite for some time. How is the way?
It has everything. I think it is a beautiful path, that it is a path of daily learning. I am very happy with the career I am having, how I have managed it up to now, because I think that not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined getting here, living it this way. Logically, losing every week is not a dish in good taste for anyone, and tennis has that, that you lose practically every week, but if you take it as a lesson to follow that path it can be very nice.
How did the path start?
It started because my mother taught at the tennis club in my town and it took me a while I think because I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore, I would be out there playing or whatever, and I liked it a lot, I was reasonably good at it. and I kept training.
How was the jump to be professional?
In my case it was very natural. I have never felt any kind of pressure or anything like that. I just went, played with other children, I started to train a little more, but everything was very natural, it was burning stages.
Is there a rough few years where you even have to put money in?
Yes Yes. Tennis is a very expensive and complicated sport. The sponsors have helped me a lot, it’s super important and even more so when you’re young.
You have beaten some of the best. What does it mean?
As an athlete, there is a part that comforts you, that you know that your work is being reflected on the court, it is beautiful, it is satisfying, it is what you work for. But not as a person, on a day-to-day basis you don’t remember and people… neither do much. It’s just something nice of the moment and it’s what you fight for on the track.
He always says that he seeks to end the feeling that he has given everything. How is that feeling?
I think you feel it, you feel it when you’re focused, you feel it when you’re working, when you’re doing your best every day, because I don’t think we have the same maximum every day. If that day you have a 60 and you are giving the 60, that is your one hundred percent of that day. I think that by understanding your body very well, by listening to yourself, you can get to know how far you are giving. Then there is a rival who also plays, who is going to do things well and it is not only your fault. It is important to be vigilant, accept whatever comes your way, have a good mentality and work to the end.
“I would have loved to be a footballer”
Garbiñe has taken a break. Does tennis wear out a lot?
In the end you are alone, it is a complicated sport, every week it demands you, every day it demands you and that is often difficult to bear. I perfectly understand. In the end, everyone makes the decisions they want. Garbiñe has given a lot to this sport and hopefully he can come back from this break as well as possible.
Is it easy to disconnect from tennis?
Not while you’re inside, it’s complicated, but there comes a time when your body also asks you to and then you have to listen to it. It depends on the moment, it is easier or more difficult. I like to come home, it helps me to disconnect; doing other things, going to the park with a cousin, taking him to school, helps me a lot; I like being with my family, soccer too…
Do you like football to play or to watch?
I would have really liked to be able to play and see it too.
So your mother put a racket in your hand, but you wanted to play soccer…
Well, yes, I wouldn’t have minded at all although I don’t know if I would have had the level.
