Waiting for their second appointment in the RCTB, this Jew before Roberto Bautista, Carlos Alcaraz (19) sails arms and the rest of the aspirants accelerate their pace.
Shapovalov, de Minaur, Norrie, Khachanov and Sinner like each other, and Dimitrov-Emilio Gómez has his inside story.
Pedro Hernández tells us at the presentation of his book, an ode to the 70th anniversary of the tournament, at the La Vanguardia stand:
"Look at this photo," says Pedro Hernandez.
He opens page 112, the one that narrates the first triumph of Andrés Gómez in Pedralbes, and points to the child who, in the image, hangs from Gómez's arms.
–Do you know who he is? –asks Pedro Hernández–: This three-year-old boy is Emilio Gómez, the Emilio that we have seen play this Wednesday here, against Dimitrov.
(This time, Emilio Gómez has been surpassed, 6-3 and 6-1, by the Bulgarian talent, the tennis player who this past weekend, in this same Barcelona, saw how some thieves snatched his high-end watch, pulling her wrist at a traffic light).
(...)
Sinner (21) also deserves a point and aside.
The Italian is an iceberg, and also a jackhammer.
In the first set, the variety of his game puzzles his rival, the little Schwartzman (30), who has lost strength in recent months and now appears as the 48th in the world, since in 2023 he has won five games and has fallen in eleven, the last one this Wednesday, in Barcelona (6-2 and 6-4).
(His face says a lot about all of this: after the defeat, Schwartzman looks sad while signing autographs and multicolored balls).
Sinner takes another course.
It grows and grows, and has already established itself in the Top 10 (it is the 8th in the world), and later, in front of the pool of the clubhouse, while signing caps to an acclaimed crowd, declares to the press:
–With Nishioka (his next rival), things are going to get complicated. He is left-handed, he has a good touch, he knows how to do many things.
Like Sinner and the rest of the candidates, Stéfanos Tsitsipás (24) also tells us that he is not out for a walk.
The Greek, second favourite, is passionate about the tournament. Just remember him two years ago, in 2021, when he was biting his nails on the podium while watching Rafael Nadal bite the trophy, his 12th title in Pedralbes.
How Tsitsipás lamented then, defeated by legend and the weight of history, and when they asked him about everything that had happened, he would say:
–The difference between Nadal and the rest of the tennis players is that Nadal hates losing more than the rest.
Now, the Tsitsipás that Rafael Nadal appears on the court is a cyclonic and determined tennis player, a tennis player who, while facing Pedro Cachín, dispatches the first set with a serve-volley and a climb to the net, and then accelerates more, until dislocating the Argentine (6-4 and 6-2).
–You have played two Grand Slam finals (Roland Garros 2021 and the Australian Open this year), you have been in multiple fights, but you have also lost in Barcelona, as in the 2018 and 2021 finals, in the last year after waste a matchball. Do you carry defeats in your memory? Do you think about them? – she asks him.
And there, Tsitsipás, the man who says that “playing on the ground is painting on a canvas”, elevates his speech, spiritualizes it:
I can't change what happened. Some tennis players stay in the past. You suffer these defeats for days, even weeks, but through these experiences, you grow, and staying there is not healthy for your game. What I try to do is structure the present to be better in the future.
(This Thursday, Tsitsipás faces Denis Shapovalov).
