All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain
Roy Batty, ‘Blade Runner’
Tears fall, the look of Rafael Nadal (38) turns red, the myth that is leaving. The man from Manacor leaves and feelings are mixed in the Martín Carpena pavilion, because this is a strange goodbye: Nadal leaves competing, as he wanted to do, but he does so, overcome by circumstances, defeated by Botic van de Zandschulp, weighing down his Spanish team.
Yes, it’s a strange epilogue.
And the night gets cloudy.
In the depths of the night, a tribute is celebrated in the center of the court, and Nadal no longer wants to be there, he did not expect to leave like this, there is silence and regret in the atmosphere, only the Dutch celebrate this moment, they celebrate it like intruders, like the uninvited friend who has crashed your party, plays his music, serves the drinks, turns off the light when leaving and ruins everything.
This is a strange goodbye: Nadal leaves playing, as he dreamed, but surpassed by his present
It’s midnight and the journey has been long. It lasted for seven hours (Zandschulp’s Nadal-Van had started at five in the afternoon), even longer, since by mid-morning we already found out that the Manacor native was going to open the tie.
There’s Nadal then. Man tries, seeking the impossible, being consistent with himself. He fights it, but he no longer gives it his all: he compromises against Botic van den Zandschulp (double 6-4) and in the middle of the afternoon, we chroniclers begin to wonder:
–Has the time definitely come, will we not see him compete anymore?
And we doubted for a long time, the time it takes Carlos Alcaraz to equalize the cross, by beating Tallon Grieksporr in the second turn (7-6 (0) and 6-3), but we definitively assumed it already in the night, when the doubles runs aground and everything ends (Alcaraz and Granollers fall to Koolhof-Van de Zandschulp by giving up both tie-breaks), no matter how much the fans encourage him:
–We love you, Rafa.
This ends and the myth cries at the closing and also cries in the prolegomena. He cries while his country’s anthem plays and watches his career pass before him.
Before the outcome, it was him. He tunes up the court, places the bottles diagonally “like soldiers in formation” (Federer said), distributes the towels in the four flower boxes in the corners, prolongs his rituals, does not step on the lines, wipes his forehead with his wristband before serve, he stretches the fold of his pants, boot and boot and the booting has no end, and Botic van de Zandschulp (29), a hypothetical troupe in this scenario, awaits him: this Dutchman He is a patient and polite guy and does not celebrate a single hit, neither his successes nor the errors of the manacorense.
Van de Zandschulp (80th in the world) has little pedigree, but he has the youth and the pace of competition (45 games he has played in 2024, compared to twenty for the Manacor native), and that is why he does not feel the weight of Nothingness not even in his first service game, when he commits three double faults in a row.
He doesn’t even see the wolf’s ears there.
When I think of Nothingness I think of Andy Roddick.
It is possible that the American was the first to feel it, although this is journalism-fiction, because I am going to 2004. I am going to La Cartuja in Seville, 200 km from here, 200 km from Malaga, I am recovering that brave gesture from the captains of Spain (then, the G3 of Avendaño, Arrese and Perlas), a brave gesture like the one Ferrer had imposed on himself yesterday.
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What happens is that this Nadal is not the one he has been for two decades, he is an autumnal Nadal, perhaps ailing, he is a guy who glimpses the exit door and who, stubborn and mythomaniac, has made one last commitment, that goodbye which he has been dreaming about for months.
A goodbye on the track.
Ferrer and the rest of the Spanish team have granted him the pass. The dozens of wealthy fans, those who have paid 30,000 euros for a resale ticket, are grateful.
In the stands, just like Nadal’s towels in the planters, the colors are spread. On one side, the red of the Spanish, a tide like that of La Cartuja. On the other, the orange of the Dutch, they are not intimidated either Nothingness .
– Let’s go Botic!
–Why don’t you shut up?
Nadal contemplates the gigantic salad bowl, leaning out in a corner, just below the stands orange and to get it he does everything, he makes everything his own: the anti-vibrator on the string goes off and stops the match between point and point. He sweats and soaks the carpet before serving, and asks Ferrer for another towel, the fifth he has already used, and barely 31 minutes of shock have passed.
By then, the player from Manacor is up 4-3, but now the troubles come, the real troubles.
Van de Zandschulp ties him at four and then breaks his serve (4-5) and serves to score the set. A Dutch reporter looks around the press gallery. He contemplates the Spanish chroniclers, he contemplates us one by one, perhaps pulsing the atmosphere.
I put on a poker face.
“We are going to win this game,” shouts the red stands.
It’s not going to be possible.
The Dutchman takes the sleeve and the Manacor native goes to the bathroom. He disappears from the scene for four minutes. Let’s see if Van de Zandschulp cools down. The maneuver does not work. Nadal loses serve at the opening of the second set and things get uphill. The afternoon turns into gibberish and Alcaraz unleashes flashes, appeases Griekspoor, but no longer performs in the doubles. Here Spanish tennis goes out and here Nadal goes out, exactly in this order.
#Nadal #retires #elimination #Spain
