At this point in the film, there are many who wonder why, to what extent it can make sense that someone who has won practically everything is still there, getting down to the mud of everyday life and rolling up his sleeves in a lower profile tournament like Bastad, risking his physique when the danger is already looming. new life and refusing to leave behind what he finds so hard to part with. Perhaps the answer lies in the historic frame offered by the opening ceremony of these Games held in Paris, the place where it all began. From 2005 to 2024. The closing of the circle. There must have been something latent there, embedded in Rafael Nadal’s soul, that has pushed him to that moment when he receives the Olympic torch from the hands of Zinedine Zidane, that alopecia genius who played with an imaginary tailcoat.
Almost two decades ago, he was the one who first presented the Musketeers Cup to the long-haired boy who was beginning to make his way into history and who received the trophy – the first of a saga of 14, an achievement that remains unattainable to this day – with a knowing smile that has continued to this day. The story, however, recalls that the beginning between Nadal and the City of Lightsuspicious then of a competitor without limits who ended up taking over the city in tennis terms. What the French fans (always complex, always with their own) perceived then as a threat finally resulted in one of the most iconic relationships in sport, because Roland Garros cannot be understood without Nadal’s mark, in the same way that the dimension of the character cannot be conceived without that trace of dirt on his socks. So time, capricious as it is, brings them together again.
Because, perhaps, it could not be otherwise.
Maybe it was bound to happen. Maybe it had to be like this. One suspects, therefore, that for that boy who used to walk with his uncle along the Champs Elysees and who ate pizza after each victory, it may have been worth the final effort to leave (and say goodbye, sooner or later) playing ball, on the sand and racket in hand, surrounded by the host of athletes and, above all, in his natural space: Paris. “The Sun King,” the newspaper described him a couple of years ago. The Teamsurrendered to a “Martian” who fully expresses the meaning of sport. Because in this way, ball by ball and over and over again, Nadal “the alien” managed to win over the vast majority of French people, reversing the narrative and transforming that rumour of the beginning into the applause and devotion of today, already adopted as one more Parisian.
We do not know how the story will end and in what format, when it will say that so far (It’s overon the other side of the Pyrenees) translated right now into an endless mystery. Nadal will do it, in any case, after a final episode that, apparently, surely had to happen. Destiny dictates. From time to time, because that’s how life works, the stars align. And the majesty of Paris illuminates the scene: him, the man of a thousand and one battles, with his 38 years and a few wrinkles on his face, a battered body, torch in hand and sailing the waters of the Seine, next to his admired Zidane (mutual respect) and with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Where else? Grandeur and eternalizedin pairs and in the rain. Pure history to open these Games.
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