When Rafael Nadalracket in hand, appears walking through the Brisbane tournament holding Rafael Nadal’s hand, racket in hand, the same question that arises so many times again.
How is it possible?
Brisbane is the first stop on Nadal’s uncertain return to tennis after a year of pause and regeneration due to injury, but seeing Rafael Nadal Parera holding the hand of Rafael Nadal Perelló, just 15 months old, dressed as a tennis player and, yes, racket in hand, it is a song of hope.
A hope that Nadal takes with caution, although he has it. “When I arrive in Paris I will know if it is my last year,” the former world number one told journalist Manuel Jabois in an interview for “El País Semanal”, the Sunday magazine of the Spanish newspaper “El País”. The Austrian Dominic Thiem, on Tuesday, January 2, is his first obstacle in Brisbane.
The interview was conducted on December 13 at the “Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy” in Kuwait, but includes a first: the Spaniard, who will turn 38 on June 3, will announce before Roland Garros whether or not 2024 is the last year of his career.
«There will be a prior announcement. There will have been five months of margin on the circuit and I will know my reality: one can sense these things, but until he feels them he cannot do anything. I am ready. I am aware that it is very likely that it will be my last year. I would love to be able to say “I’m leaving” before Australia, which is going to be my last year and let it be known, to play with that emotion of farewell and for the public to experience the games in a different way.
«I have seen colleagues who have announced these things and, four years later, they are still playing. Well, I don’t like it (…). I am aware that there are many options for it to end, but I don’t know one hundred percent. If suddenly at the end of the year I feel physically well, my family is doing well with what I do, I have fun and I feel competitive? But since I know that this is very difficult, I am preparing for goodbye.
Rafael Nadal and his son, Rafael Nadal, at the Brisbane 2024 tournament / CAPTURE
It is, like so many other times throughout Nadal’s career, a yes, but no. Or not, but yes.
The interview he does with Nadal Jabois, one of the great brands of Spanish journalism, is generous in interesting definitions. An example? The argument to defend the tennis of long points, of extensive exchanges.
«Extraordinary points are always accompanied by rallies. It is very difficult, from my own experience, to excite the spectator with two or three stroke points. No matter how spectacular it is. The spectator gets into the game, gets excited and intervenes, and we perceive that on the court when the game is long and there are long points. When there is drama. And that is only given by the rally.
Other? The explanation of why tennis cannot be taken as a job: «I am more of a competitor than a winner, to be honest. Defeat does not destroy me. There are games that hurt you to lose, it would just be missing. But I’m more of a competitor. If I compete, I feel good. Sports cannot be a job where you go to fulfill the record. There has to be illusion, madness, flame.
A defeat that hurt you? «I was very frustrated to lose the Australia 2014 final against (Stanislas) Wawrinka. I broke down: I injured my back in the first set. That really sank me. He left me touched for quite a long time. Because? Because I couldn’t even compete.
The journalist reminds him of Novak Djokovic’s statements in which the Serbian claims to have felt intimidated by Nadal’s jumping and snorting in the locker room before games. Nadal rejects that idea: «It was never, never, never my intention. I warm up like this, I try to be prepared and ready to go, and I exercise, nothing more. I haven’t heard what he said, to be honest.
And, 672 in the ranking today, but with a number one mentality, he talks about Roger Federer, his great symbolic rival, the man around whom he built his career.
«Federer was perfection on an aesthetic level, on a level of elegance, on a technical level. (Note: I have very good technique, a lot of it, but technique is not the same as aesthetics. They are two different things. He had an incredible technique making things very beautiful with impressive elegance). When I arrived, he was number one in the world, and he got a rival with long hair and an exuberant physique. Elegance against a warrior. There was a pack of combinations of personalities and styles; And that, together with the fact that we have played many games on the most important stages, turned our rivalry into something that transcended more than any other duel.
Nadal’s analysis, defining himself as a “warrior” and owner of “an exuberant physique” is novel in these terms. And it is also interesting what he says about the “new Federer”, the one who returned in 2017 to win the Australian Open twice and Wimbledon once.
«When he returns in 2017, after his injury, he makes a very important change. He changes the racket for a bigger one, which hits harder, and makes a mental change. Since he knows that he can’t run like before, he becomes a much more aggressive player, and it hurts me a lot. He was a better player than me on hard court, but until that moment I think I had beaten him more times there. But he reinvents himself, and adds another twist to his game: hyperaggressive. My tactic of punishing his backhand still works, but it doesn’t have as much effect because he won’t let me: he plays very fast. He did not allow me to do my repetition against his weak point.
And, then, Nadal also leaves a novel idea, the explanation of a mistake by Federer.
«It’s something he had made a mistake in his career: he let me repeat the blows towards his backhand. Her exit was a cut backhand, and I have a very good ball when it is cut, it doesn’t bother me, I like to return it and I return it hard, I am not uncomfortable.
Except for that mistake, Federer is, more than a year after retiring, something too great for Nadal: “Since I can remember, he is the player who has impressed me the most, the one who has entertained me the most, the one who has moved me the most. . “I have been more excited to see Federer play than Djokovic, and in the end tennis is emotion, emotion is what draws you to it.”
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2023-12-31 19:34:13
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