Tennis lovers must remember the scene.
It is September 2022 and Roger Federer breaks down in tears at the O2 in London. It’s his last Laver Cup match, his last match as a tennis player, actually. She’s saying goodbye to competition: she won’t be dancing on a tennis court again.
How serious is this loss!
Federer is crying and Rafael Nadal (37) is crying next to him, also broken down. Watching it, fans wonder:
– That maybe Christmas will be next?
It’s been a year and a half and, it’s true, we now know that Nadal is going after Federer: his career is coming to an end.
(Without going any further, last week he communicated in Barcelona that he will not compete for a Godó trophy again.)
What we don’t know is when: When will Nadal retire?
And here we enter the territory of assumptions, since, admittedly, it is likely that he does not know either.
Saint, let’s get back to the prognostications, the bad guys.
They’ve been like this for weeks.
– Nadal will retire to Barcelona – some said.
– I think it will be at Roland Garros – said others.
– He plans to make it to the Paris Games – the third.
– When it is, but let it be already – said the more sour spirits, those who do not assume that a talent like Nadal has earned the faculty to decide, for himself, goodbye.
(…)
Yesterday the manacorí gave us some clues. If he retires for good this year, it will not be in Paris, where his steel sculpture, 2.60 m high, is located. It won’t be at Roland Garros, and neither will it be at the Olympic Games (and here the exciting adventure of a Nadal-Alcaraz duo is gathering momentum, a proposal that the Murcian man blesses without hesitation).
If Nadal leaves, perhaps it will be in the autumn, in Berlin, the scene of the next Laver Cup (September 20 to 22): he has already announced that, on those days, he plans to jump into the Uber Arena.
Yesterday he said:
– At this point in my career, I want to go out and take advantage of every opportunity that is offered to me.
And the opportunity has been given by Björn Borg.
Borg is the captain of the European Laver Cup team. It is his fourth year in office. He had already been in that Federer farewell, and he continues to be now.
(If we remember Borg, we must associate his name with that of John McEnroe: there are videos, documentaries, comparative literature and a film about it; in fact, McEnroe remains the antithesis of the Swede, captaining the team of the United States of the Laver Cup.)
Borg has already selected four of its six members, and they include Carlos Alcaraz, Daniïl Medvedev, Sasha Zverev and Rafael Nadal.
Nadal, for Borg, is tennis history. As is Borg, for all of us.
– Rafa is a legend in our sport, a champion in the broadest sense of the word – said Borg. This will be my last year as captain. Having him in Team Europe was one of my goals and I am delighted that he has accepted my invitation and will be in Berlin.
The news tells us that the manacorí is rediscovering himself as a tennis player. We were able to verify this in the last few days in Barcelona. We saw him testing himself, piloting in the RCTB, hitting hard with David Jordà and Andrei Rubliov. And then, already with the audience in the stands, defeating Flavio Cobolli and facing Alex de Miñaur.
Nadal has come out stronger from the experience. Despite the obvious shortcomings in the serve (“I’ve hardly been able to work on it for the past few months, I don’t have to risk the abs yet”), he feels competitive and in a position to continue forward in his mad race towards the ‘infinite
Yesterday he learned that on Thursday, at the Mutua Madrid Open, the American Darwin Blanch is waiting for him.
Blanch is number 1,028 in the world and is 16 years old.
The chronicler wonders what must be going through the teenager’s mind.
How can he sleep thinking that a veteran legend is waiting for him, a guy who already had three Roland Garros titles before he was even born?
