Marcel Granollers, sixth in the doubles ranking at 38 years old, has 25 titles in the middle of the court, of which eight have been alongside the Argentine Horacio Zeballos. The Spanish-Argentine couple, semi-finalists last week in the Monte Carlo Masters 1000, play this week in the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, a tournament that eludes Marcel, like the title in one of the four ‘Grand Slam’.
Granollers feels that he is hitting the last blows with a racket in his hand. Many of his generation colleagues, such as David Ferrer, Feliciano and Marc López, Pablo Andújar and Tommy Robredo have already left and Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco are about to leave.
“As the years go by you ask yourself the question of how long. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I think this season will be my last full season on the circuit. From here on, I want to do the best I can in every tournament I play.“, reflects in MARCA.
Aim
Marcel doesn’t look long term. “In recent seasons I have considered everything tournament by tournament, in the short term. The first objective each year is to qualify for the Turin Masters, which means having had a good and regular year.” About the option of winning a big one that is missing from his record. It is clear “that I would have liked to have won or won it. I have everything else. It is not something that obsesses me. I try to do my job the best I can every day. If I don’t achieve it, I will still have had a good career at the level.” singles and doubles”.
500 victories on the doubles circuit
The Catalan tennis player reached 500 mid-court victories last March at the Miami Open after defeating Marcelo Arévalo and Mate Pavic 7-5 6-3: “I had never thought about reaching that number because doubles was never a priority. I had my individual career and I have achieved good results later in doubles, which has allowed me to extend my career when the results in singles were no longer good.
Granollers knew that he was close to that magical number of wins because members of the ATP called him to prepare an interview for the day he reached that number: “I had discounted myself a little because in Indian Wells we won a match by W.0. and it doesn’t count“.
Changes are needed in doubles to attract more people
Godó
As a local player, Marcel experienced from a young age how his parents took him to the RCT Barcelona facilities to see the best players. “Yes, it is special. I had the illusion of being able to play it and I have been lucky enough to play it for many years.”
The tennis player is a fixture in captain David Ferrer’s plans for the Paris Olympic Games. “I was in London and we played at Wimbledon and this time it will be at Roland Garros. It will be something different.”
The new rules at the Mutua Madrid Open
Granollers is in favor of the new initiatives that will be tested in the next edition of the Mutua Madrid Open: no rest in the first set, 15 seconds to serve after points of three or fewer strokes, 13 pairs of singles. “In doubles, changes are needed to attract more people and have more interest from everyone. I understand that the majority of fans identify with singles players.”
2024-04-15 06:38:54
#full #season #circuit
