“Thank you, Rafa,” continue to shout today the signs that greet the passenger at the Malaga airport, and those that wrap the windows in the Palacio de los Deportes metro station, and those that greet the tourist who has a chocolate in the Paseo de la Alameda.
I look at those posters as I walk the boulevards of the city.
And I still say to myself:
–Come on, Rafa.
But Rafael Nadal has already left, the Spanish team has faded away, there are orders to withdraw in the press room and the most spirited spectators are losing their spirit: bored in the sun, yesterday they lay on the sun loungers and watched the Altmaier-Diallo and the Struff-Shapovalov, the desaboration quarterfinal match between Germany and Canada (Germany won, 2-0; they will be the Netherlands’ rival in the semifinal).
How small this Davis Cup has become.
This was not planned.
At least, not so soon.
In the popular imagination, it was expected that Nadal would have left with a bang, offering a great or, at least, notable performance.
And that David Ferrer’s team had at least reached the semifinals, and not the Dutch.
And that the farewell tribute to the Manacorí would have been a dignified exercise, not an inopportune, unexpected and half-hearted act that was celebrated at nightfall, before a disenchanted audience eager to go home, because tomorrow we have to work like every son. of neighbor.
Everything has been strange because we were full of adrenaline, and when we lost everything came together”
(…)
At midnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, the red tide had lowered its head as it watched the orange Dutch took over the stage.
Paul Haarhuis’s people were bouncing down there, blessed by Van de Zandschulp’s victory over Nadal, and then their doubles victory.
What a crowd they had set up, they looked like Olympic champions, and not the uncomfortable guests who have crashed your party and brought their music and serve the drinks with jugs and will turn off the light when they leave and ruin the party.
What a hangover tomorrow.
(…)
On Tuesday night, when everything has ended on the court of the Martín Carpena pavilion, three sad men immerse themselves in its belly and attend to the dozen of journalists who still remain there. We chroniclers are the bodyguard, irreducible who travel the world narrating the adventures of tennis stars, we are what Rafael Nadal blessed an hour before, in his farewell speech:
–You have accompanied me all over the world, you have treated me great, you have told my story, which has been beautiful.
It’s 1:10 at night, it’s not tennis hours, and the three sad men are David Ferrer, the Spanish captain, and Carlos Alcaraz and Marcel Granollers, the doubles players who have tried to make up for the mess but there was no way, this was a constrictor knot, a miller’s knot that does not untie, alea jacta est.
–Analyzing what has happened is not easy –says David Ferrer, the captain. He speaks quietly, he always speaks softly, but the message arrives the same –: I decided which players played and that decision was complicated (…) This is sport and tomorrow we will have to get up and accept it.
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Actually, the diplomat David Ferrer has played a secondary role in this mess: a halo of suspicion hovers over the stage.
Everyone, Nadal and himself, insist that it was the captain who ordered the Manacorí to come on stage to face Van de Zandschulp.
(The bet turned out to be a success, we refer to the facts).
–It was all a bit strange because we were full of adrenaline, and when we ended up losing everything came together.
In the groups there is disagreement.
These are days of open debates.
Was this all?
Skeptics leave wondering: “Was this really the farewell Nadal had dreamed of?”
At some point during the press conference, Marcel Granollers disconnects. His gaze wanders somewhere to the back of the room.
He only returns to the present when we ask him about Nadal.
Then he says:
–I thank you for the values that you have transmitted throughout your career.
And Alcaraz?
The heir to the king’s crownas an interlocutor describes him, brings the response prepared:
–For the young people who come from behind and have many years ahead of us, it is fortunate to have lived through the era of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. Although I also know that if we don’t reach that level, it may be seen as a disappointment. I am going to try to be the best person possible, to see if at the end of my career I give at least half as much as Nadal – says Alcaraz.
When I go out into the night, cool these days in Malaga, I ask Javi Sánchez, teammate The World:
–It is true that Nadal has said goodbye competing, applauded by his audience. But do you think this was really the farewell he’s been fantasizing about these past few months?
We both shrug our shoulders, put on a poker face.
#party #hangover
