A phrase presides over the track Philippe Chatrier:
"Victory belongs to the most tenacious"
(victory belongs to the most tenacious)
Like a mantra, the phrase repeats itself in the chronicler's mind.
And he reads it and rereads it and then turns his eyes towards the VIP box, the personalities area, and there he distinguishes Toni Nadal, in white shirt sleeves and sunglasses, with his arms crossed and perhaps repeating himself:
-How did I get here?
The reflection is legitimate and even inevitable, since Toni Nadal has been Rafael Nadal's sporting father, and he is also his uncle, and yet right now he is leading the steps of Felix Auger-Aliassime, a long black Canadian who, like a shadow, intends to cut off the Balearic, the phenomenon that has won thirteen titles in Paris and, as big as it is, even sports a sculpture of its name in the venue, the magnificent creation of Jordi Díez.
"How did I get here?" Perhaps Toni Nadal is saying to himself, who is now on neutral ground.
Neither has he sat down with his family, in Nadal's box, nor has he done so in the space of Auger-Aliassime (current 9th racket), his pupil at the Manacor academy, a whole game of contradictions and an invitation to the reverie of the chronicler, who retrieves images from the past, not so far away.
In full evocation, we recover Toni Nadal and his nephew embracing in the Philippe Chatrier box, again and again, every time the man of the 21 Grand Slams flies over the theater to win another title in Paris, more than anyone ever.
And now?
Now Toni Nadal says:
I would never want my nephew to lose. My nephew is my nephew.
And yet there is Toni Nadal now, in no man's land, seeing the glass half full or half empty, because no matter what happens, his people are going to win or lose.
On clay, Rafael Nadal lives his own inner dilemma. Auger-Aliassime serves as the devil, often above 200 km/h, and puts him on the ropes: in 52 minutes, the Canadian (21) scores the first set (3-6).
And for that, Nadal stops. He lengthens the rallies and tries to slow down Auger-Aliassime. And in the effort, he rushes to the clay and coats his colorful green uniform with red.
(will change it a few games later, Nadal never wears spots)
Things are not going well, it seems to have gone wrong for Nadal, who had not yielded a set these days and it was going well for him, since it is convenient for him to cut commitments, weighed down as he is by his battered foot.
-He hadn't started well at all, he had to transform all that, change his attitude -he will say later, after his victory.
Nothing goes right until things are transfigured. The sun appears, the Balearic grows and the Canadian is no longer so infallible. At 1h38m of the match, Nadal breaks Auger-Aliassime's service and caresses the second set to the delight of the fifteen thousand souls of Philippe Chatrier: 6-3.
There is no room for a pin and the duel seems colossal.
The public makes the wave, something unthinkable in other tennis settings, for example at Wimbledon.
-Ooooéééééé.
The tenacious Nadal emerges -perhaps they dedicated the phrase that presides over the stage to him?-, the type who does not abandon a ball, and now runs from side to side after the strokes of Auger-Aliassime, and often arrives and lengthens a blow more, and the Canadian hesitates and stumbles and sees the third game of the third set slip away from him.
Is the game starting to go away?
By then it's getting cold again at Philippe Chatrier, really cool, barely fourteen degrees, and the souls huddle together and some shiver, but no one leaves the town because a while later, already at the edge of the night, Auger-Aliassime reacts and the fourth set is scored and Nadal frowns and commits himself even more.
We will have to go to the fifth heat, now this is an endurance race.
Auger-Aliassime holds his own and continues adding points at the net, many more than Nadal accumulates, but he ends up compromising in the eighth game: his service loses efficiency and Nadal, wise at this point of a great, runs like a junior to save a drop shot and take advantage of the gap and sneak into the quarterfinals.
-Auger-Aliassime is one of the best tennis players of the new generation, with great mobility. He has improved a lot year after year, he is a good colleague on the circuit, I wish him the best - Nadal tells Àlex Corretja, still on the track, microphone in hand.
Is he complimenting his own uncle?
(...)
Two hours earlier, when the cold was not yet pressing, Diego Schwartzman had tried to rebel against Novak Djokovic.
It was not the first time, little Schwartzman (29), a fighter on the courts, a disciplined and very brave tennis player whose moment never comes, never does, had had a few attempts. Perhaps the commitment weighs on him, the pressure of being today the only Argentine tennis player with a real presence in the ranking, now that Juan Martín del Potro, a giant knocked down by injuries, has retired.
How many times has Schwartzman shot the stick?
How many times have you run out of gas?
His resume tells us, full of interesting moments, none of them outstanding.
Schwartzman puts his visor back, like naughty children, and shows off a semifinal in Paris (2020, the year of the icy and sad tournament in the fall) and two quarterfinals in New York and little else.
It is little, it has already been said in the previous paragraph, and of course it is insufficient against Djokovic, the ambitious Serbian who has always beaten him (they are 7-0 in direct confrontations) and who always faces everything and everyone: he not only challenges to its rivals, it also challenges the scientists fighting the pandemic.
Of those fights, those in which he goes against the current, Djokovic comes out scalded.
In January, his crusade against vaccines not only cost him expulsion from Australia, shaken by the Canberra government, but also ended up hindering his access to the two 1,000 American Masters at the end of winter.
Of the fights on the tracks, that is another story...
Here, the Serbian usually prevails.
At noon on the Suzanne-Lenglen court, the second court of the Bois de Boulogne, Djokovic put his hand to his temple before crushing the small revolution -the Argentine had managed to break his serve at the beginning of the second set-, and then accelerated towards victory (6-1, 6-3 and 6-3, in 2h15m) to send a warning to Rafael Nadal, as if to say:
If you're looking for me, here I am.
(So far in the tournament, the Serbian, champion of 2021, has not yielded a single set)
