Sport, a whirlpool of emotions, shook the shaker at the Caja Mágica on Saturday on a most strange day, which began with the staff resigned to what they feared was goodbye, and which ended with skyrocketing euphoria. It is difficult to find the grays when elements as moving and instinctive as nostalgia, passion and euphoria intermingle. There was everything. And in generous doses. When leaving the premises, there were many parishioners who fantasized and threw a why not one last time?, dreaming that what he witnessed could perhaps be the beginning of the umpteenth resurrection: 7-6(6) and 6-3 against Alex de Miñaur, the eleventh in the world. But Nadal was there to put everyone’s feet on the ground.
“The other day, Madrid (against City) defended for 120 minutes, won on penalties and everything is exciting. That’s the magic. Today, in the first set, I hit a crosscourt backhand that touched the tape and I ended up winning it. “Those of us who compete,” he clarifies, “also get infected by that emotion, but we see sport in a general way, not only from the emotional point of view or the illusion. I get excited the same. I watch Tiger (Woods) play at Augusta, starting with a birdie, and I’m also coming up, but it’s a long time without competing. And mine is a bit the same. This is just one game, in two days you start again. The glass of confidence is filling up, but I think that today I am far from being able to aspire to things that people can think out of emotion.”
The champion of 22 majors was departing after a creditable victory against the Australian. A triumph that, speaking plainly, not even the most devout foretold. Nadal, 38 years old on June 3, collided a week later with the same roadrunner who gave him a devastating 6-1 in the Barcelona arena, then without a chance because he lost the first set and ran out of fuel in the second, broken . This time, however, he directed the game with hierarchy and explored angles with the depth of the backhand, overcoming a slip in the tiebreaker—four options to close the set, 6-2, finally resolved in the fifth—and maintaining the pace in the continuation. Great news, considering where he comes from, how he is doing or the fact that he hasn’t been able to rehearse the serve correctly for three months, he says. But above all, he asks for calm.
“Let’s not get carried away by emotion,” he claimed. “There are many things that have to be adjusted. I’ve been able to do things that I couldn’t last week, so that’s been positive. But it hasn’t been a very week, let’s see how I recover from today’s game,” she continued, emphasizing the physical factor several times. Because today, just like yesterday, Nadal does not fear for his ability to recover the game, but rather for what the bodywork may have in store for him and whether it will allow him to expand the margin in his efforts; that is, for not breaking. For now, on Saturday he resisted a 2h 02m bid, and he will now fight to extend the credit in terms of matches. There are already two in a row in Madrid, together with the handful of good level training sessions that had been denied until now.
“A match is not going to change my perspective, first I have to be convinced that my physique responds. I have to regain confidence in my body, because a lot of things have happened, and then I have to regain confidence in myself, on a tennis level, in every way. I have the opportunity to play another game here, so that’s at least two in two weeks, and that’s progress because I haven’t been able to do it in two years. It is another opportunity to continue, and to continue proving myself,” he said, while adding that he cannot “make a fool of himself” with the service – 73% with first and 53% with seconds, good records – and that the pain that pursue are “more or less controlled.”
He emphasizes that he will only go to Paris if he has “the possibility to dream,” and insisted that everything will depend on what his body, his true judge, tells him: “If I see that I can’t last the entire tournament, I won’t go.” In any case, the present holds a crossroads for him with the Argentine Pedro Cachín, superior yesterday to Frances Tiafoe (7-6(1), 3-6 and 6-4) despite the fact that before landing in the San Fermín neighborhood he accumulated 15 consecutive losses. He is 29 years old, he is 91st in the world. And Nadal, handbrake in the message, relativizes and demands caution, but the fans withdrew making hypotheses and analyzing the picture, just in case, who knows; still under the reverie of an afternoon on the surface.
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