Suddenly, two extraordinary Spanish tennis players coincide in time.
They coincide in time, not in space: this last Friday, Rafael Nadal announced that he will not be seen these days at the RCTB, since he is behind in his fitness, conditioned by the psoas injury that he has been dragging since January .
Forget about space. Let's go back in time, then.
Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz look at each other and admire each other, and the world tennis parish (the weight of both far transcends our borders) applauds them, unable to opt for one or the other. Why take sides, why should one? Is it essential?
Well, the game of one is antagonistic to the other, starting with physical symmetry (Nadal is left-handed, Alcaraz is right-handed) and continuing with the tennis canons that define each one.
Nadal (36) is solvency and perseverance, a regularity of long rallies and muscular power that disjoints the adversary, drives him crazy. Historically, he has done it with Federer. He has also done it with Djokovic. Alcaraz (19) is freshness and impudence, the change of pace and the effervescence of the teenager. A gamer.
The powers of both are unlimited. And yet, when thinking about one and the other, the analyst plunges into conflicting feelings. The onlooker is assailed, at the same time, by illusion and melancholy: it would have been wonderful to see how both, Nadal and Alcaraz, faced each other in the best moments of their careers. Because right now, Nadal and Alcaraz live in different times.
Rafael Nadal has entered the tennis autumn. Saying it is a risk, but also a duty: for years we have been talking about Nadal's autumn, and here the man continues despite his footing. Nadal's left foot has been a setback for 19 years: 19 years is equivalent to his entire professional career.
Nadal's foot had started to break in the spring of 2004. He was playing in Estoril when he felt a crash. stress fracture. A year and a half later, and already with the first Roland Garros in the showcase of the Manacorense, that injury was reproduced. Nadal was facing Ivan Ljubicic in Madrid when his foot broke again. The analyzes dictated judgment. Nadal was a victim of Müller-Weiss syndrome. It is a degenerative disease, and against it there is no antidote. The problem was here to stay. And it has conditioned his sports career.
Carlos Alcaraz flies free. He is still young, and he hits with everything, and sometimes the vehemence goes against him, it can cause a muscle injury, Alcaraz is gunpowder. In November of last year, an abdominal tear sent him to the physiotherapist's stretcher. And from there, to rehabilitation. More than four months away from competitions, an eternity for a 19-year-old tennis player, perhaps a mature tennis player like Nadal will not perceive it that way.
The chronicler is overwhelmed by remembering Nadal, writhing in pain, barely ten months ago. It was June 6. The day before, the man from Manacor had collected his 14th Musketeer Cup at Roland Garros. His team had summoned the special envoys at the Intercontinental Le Grand hotel. There was going to be a group with the legend, a question and answer session that is already a tradition, since it is always held after each Nadal title in Paris. We have already said it: there are 14 editions.
We chroniclers sit in the armchairs in the room and wait. Nadal limped in. He walked as best he could, contained the gesture of pain, but his grimace gave him away. The anesthesia was no longer working and the scaphoid was broken. Nadal had won his 14th Roland Garros on one leg. It's not an exaggeration, it's literal. He was barely on his feet. To serve us, he took a seat. The hypothetical degenerative lesion was already the worst of realities. A nightmare.
The nightmare had exploded on his face in May 2022, in Rome, and since then everything had gotten worse. Intent on prolonging his love affair with tennis, Nadal was taking risks. To win the title at Roland Garros, a month and a half later, he had undergone a daily puncture. Daily, they infiltrated his sensory nerve, thus inhibiting his pain. If he had pinched his motor nerve, his foot would have been immobilized. In Paris, Nadal injected himself before each training session and also before each match. While playing tennis, he barely felt a tingle in the toes of his left foot, little more. Hours later, his foot woke up. By waking up the foot, he would wake up the pain.
While Nadal persisted with his pain, Alcaraz prepared the great assault on the tennis scepter. He was accompanied by his talent, and also the situation. Roger Federer had said enough, Nadal saw the eyes of the dragon, Novak Djokovic was and is a hurricane on the slopes and a disaster in managing his image: the Serb refused to get vaccinated, and that is why the Australian Open and the US Open had banned his presence. Djokovic paid for his stubbornness: thousands of points vanished.
With Djokovic blocked, Alcaraz advanced between the lines until he took over the world ranking. It happened in September, when he won the US Open, his first Grand Slam. At 19 years and 214 days, he became the youngest leader in ATP history (until then, the record was held by Lleyton Hewitt, at 20 years and 275 days, in 2001).
In Paris, Nadal's foot and environment recommended a rest, who knows if a full stop. Nadal said no way. His tenacity led him to continue. His tenacity had brought him here. If Nadal were not Nadal, he would never have reached 22 Grand Slams, a record shared with Djokovic. Maybe he would have stopped at the first big one. Maybe not even that.
Now he had no choice. The scaphoid was definitely broken and the pain was insurmountable. Two windows were barely ajar. Nadal could go under the knife, have the bone removed and replace it with a prosthesis. The recovery did not offer him guarantees in his tennis future, and also required eight months of rest. At 36, it would be the end of him.
He could also take more risks, give himself one last chance. She could try a method of permanent anesthesia. He was opting for this possibility, a burning nail. Anesthetized to infinity, Nadal played at Wimbledon. He performed wonderfully, he scored five victories, but he tore an abdominal in the quarterfinals, against Taylor Fritz, and he could no longer face Nick Kyrgios in the semifinal. The agony dragged on, should he finally give up?
Nadal shook his head again: Djokovic wanted the 22 grand, as many as the man from Manacor. This race had gone crazy.
By then, Alcaraz accelerated more. He had not shone at Roland Garros (he had fallen in the quarterfinals) or at Wimbledon (in the round of 16), but he stood in the finals in Hamburg and in Umag and was already in the Top 5. The world looked at him ojiplático. A similar progression is not remembered, perhaps Agassi in his saw teeth. In August 2020, Alcaraz was the 318th racket in the world. In September 2021, she the 55th.
One more push, the victory in New York, was going to project him to the top: he was already the most precocious leader ever seen. His evolution is amazing, but also his drift on the tracks. Alcaraz plays uninhibited, launches drop shots, volleys and lobs. He always tries to solve big. an ace. A serve-volley. He dominates the matches. And the most surprising thing: he behaves the same, cheekily, whether he plays against Djokovic or against Krajinovic. His tennis is fresh air, academicism made perfect, a roller coaster that renews the illusion of the parish.
Even in conflicting circumstances, both come to the present standing. Nadal has hardly been seen in this 2023, weighed down in the winter by a muscular problem. Alcaraz has spent four months off the scene, but has flown since March, with his prodigious rentrée: Buenos Aires, Rio, Indian Wells and Miami. The drifts of the two best Spanish tennis players in history intersect. Nadal, twelve times champion in Pedralbes, continues his story, does not give in and the world thanks him while he wonders:
–How far will he be able to go?
In Alcaraz, the 2022 champion, the spirit of the puppy and the qualities of a superlative tennis player are condensed. Both coincide in time, there will be no better gift for tennis.
