A relva
A temporada de tênis sobre a grama é uma idiossincrasia instalada no circuito de tênis profissional que ninguém, além dos ingleses, sabe bem como lidar.
Foi sobre a grama que o esporte foi originalmente inventado, um argumento poderoso que ela e seus defensores têm. Por sorte, dela pelo menos, foi inventada pelos ingleses, um povo extremamente apegado às suas tradições. Outro povo talvez já tivesse aberto mão do piso há um longo tempo.
Os próprios ingleses deram sua vacilada no início dos anos oitenta, muito por conta da pressão da imprensa local e dos próprios tenistas que não queriam o hiato da temporada grama. Ambos insistiam que não havia o menos cabimento jogar sobre um piso que os tenistas não gostavam em um clube que tratava mal os tenistas e por estes era odiado.
O piso só sobreviveu graças à teimosia dos velhinhos do All England Club, que não queria saber de mudar as quadras, por conta de alguns tenistas que imperavam na época e que tinhas suas características convenientemente acentuadas e as ações de Mark McComark fundador da empresa IMG, que assumiu o marketing do torneio. Vale lembrar que tenistas que se davam bem na grama de então, eram tenistas que também se davam bem nos pisos rápidos indoors, um piso que dominava o outono e o inverno no hemisfério norte e constituía mais de 1/3 do circuito, assim como as quadras duras rápidas, que dominavam o circuito do verão americano, após o breve flerte com a terra no final dos anos setenta.
Hoje, o breve circuito sobre a grama é algo como aquele tio maluco e milionário que todos tentam conviver e, quando possível, se aproveitar. Todo mundo mete o pau, mas todos comparecem para jogar e fazer a festa. Além disso, o inquestionável charme da quadra de grama segue sendo um enorme diferencial, especialmente para o público. Não há duvida que acompanhar uma partida sobre a relva verde, mesmo pela TV, segue sendo uma experiência única e inesquecível. Assim como jogar sobre ela – para o bem ou para o mal.
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70 ANDRE R 09/06/2011 0:03
Saudações Vascaínas
69 Damon Andrade 09/06/2011 0:08
Comprei algumas cervejas e liguei para meu paizinho que mora em Itapetinga-Bahia. Disse que assistiria e torceria para o Vasco em homenagem a ele! Parabéns aos vascaínos!
68 Glads 09/06/2011 0:10
Pezão
Tô feliz , e mais que isso, tô no nirvana.
Te avisei Pezão, a taça já tava na mão dos meus onze touros.
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Eta coisa gostosa.
Matte-Spam, o Ditone ganhou!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Sua Benção Cambuí, sua Benção!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Bom demais,
São Jorge sentou praça na cavalaria!
césar cambuí 09/06/2011 13:17
Benção para Ronaldo, Benção para Mr Marco, a Benção para todos nós e a imensa nação vascaína.
Matteoni 09/06/2011 0:14
Parabéns Ditone!!!
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Agora… 11 touros!?
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Já imaginou 11 Nadais em campo!!!?
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E na grama?
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Eu hein…
Bet@ 09/06/2011 0:14
Essa coisa de ter muitos amigos às vezes dá nó! A gente quer comemorar a alegria de um, mas se chateia com a tristeza do outro.
Mas amanhã tem Sol e ressaca não dura pra sempre.
Parabéns aos amigos cruzmaltinos, um abraço para compensar a tristeza do meu grande amigo Capitão Rodrigo.
Ditone, onze anos viraram passado. Um brinde, meu irmão, um brinde!
67 Bet@ 09/06/2011 0:10
Glads
A Cruz de Malta subiu o mastro!!!!
66 Glads 09/06/2011 0:11
Damom, manda um beijo pra mim, êta dia!
Matteoni 09/06/2011 0:17
E esse Avatar do Damon é poodle total!
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Parece o Richarlysson na praia!!!
65 Glads 09/06/2011 0:14
Betão, Mano Beta
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Eu estou feliz alem de mim, não mereço tanto!
Meu Vasco é assim mesmo, lindo de lindo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
64 Damon Andrade 09/06/2011 0:19
Um beijo pra Glads! ahahahahhahah! Aqui é engraçado! Meu pai me ajuda torcendo para o Palmeiras e eu o ajudo torcendo pro Vasco (quando eles n se enfrentam, lógico!) ^^
Aproveitem vascainos! Curtam um monte! Tá duro ganhar alguma coisa ultimamente! ^^ Equilíbrio danado!
63 Damon Andrade 09/06/2011 0:22
Afff! foi só começar a digitar alguma coisa que já sou alvo de impropérios! Por tamanhas insinuações de “poodleismo” estou quase colocando no meu avatar um poodle rosa logo! E se pudesse colocar uma assinatura colocaria um trecho da música “I will survive” ^^
62 Bet@ 09/06/2011 0:45
Totalmente off post, raptei o link de um email encaminhado pelo Jeff. Enquanto o povo se esfalfela por aqui, o pobrezinho está realmente numa depressão de dar dó …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xag7oXYcRBY
61 Alexandre Macedo 09/06/2011 1:22
Cleto,
Conforem havia combinado antes de RG, enviei uma mensagem para seu e-mail particular sobre esse torneio. Favor dar uma verificada.
Sds,
Alexandre Macedo.
60 Felipe B 09/06/2011 3:53
Pois é Jhonny, eu tinha olhado no início de 2011 e tava um pouco acima dos 50% nos tie-breaks.
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É aquilo q eu falo direto aqui, a fila do lado sempre parece q está mais rápida, mas a gente só repara isso qdo a nossa tá devagar… Mais ainda a gente só repara mesmo na fila que está mais rápida de todas entre as 10 filas q estão do nosso lado.
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É a mesma coisa pra um tenista, todos caras q estão ali com ranking parecido tem desempenho parecido, não tem jeito de ser diferente, a não ser por contusão. Alguém fica aí reparando q Raonic perdeu os últimos 4 jogos antes dessa semana? Mas qdo ele ganhou ATP todo mundo reparou. E o Chela q jogou mto nas últimas semanas ganhando 8 jogos seguidos? Chamou atenção, não chamou? Pois antes disso ele tinha perdido 5 seguidos…
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Martin, os caras q eu falei no parágrafo anterior são top 30 e não escolhi eles a dedo não, peguei os primeiros q vieram na minha cabeça. Tenho certeza q qqr cara q vc pegar nessa faixa aí vai ter +- o mesmo resultado.
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A mesma coisa pro tie-breaks. Qdo eu olhei as estatísticas no início do ano eu tinha olhado de um monte de top 30 tb, e era a mesma coisa. Tinham uns 5 entre os 100 do mundo que tinham mais de 60% em tiebreaks, e claro Federer e Nadal estavam entre eles. Se o set vai pro desempate é pq o jogo está duro, portanto qqr um pode ganhar, o natural é ter um aproveitamento de 50%. Não é pq o cara é 30 do mundo q ele tem q ter um aproveitamento melhor, pq qdo ele joga com o 120º dificilmente o set vai pro tie-break. Federer e Nadal além de serem caras fora de série ainda intimidam os adversários por tudo q representam no esporte então é natural q num jogo apertado eles se sobressaiam mas um cara de ranking 30 não é assim.
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Bom, terminando meu comentário gigante, tb acho o Cilic bem favorito, embora isso não queira dizer q Bellucci não tem chances de ganhar. Cilic é melhor rankeado, tem um jogo mais apropriado para as quadras de grama, já foi top 10 e embora seja um pouquinho mais novo tem muito mais bagagem no circuito. Mas favoritos tb perdem, e isso não é exclusividade do Thomaz como várias pessoas pensam por aqui. O circuito é equilibrado, basta o azarão estar num dia bom e o favorito baixar a guarda um pouquinho q a zebra acontece. Vamos torcer!!!
59 leo borges 09/06/2011 7:12
desempenho do Cilic em tiebreaks na carreira : 53 vitórias, 65 derrotas. Caras, só de ter retrospecto um pouco positivo já está de bom tamanho, hein.
58 Matteoni 09/06/2011 8:02
E hoje é dia do Tenista!
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Parabéns a todos!
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So fico me perguntando qual data o Cleto escolheu para o dia do Sofasista!
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Abcs
Marcelo S. 09/06/2011 9:57
Podia ser feriado para os tenistas…
57 Damon Andrade 09/06/2011 9:24
Já discutimos esse assunto num tópico passado, mas só fui ler o blog do Cossenza ontem e encontrei um belo texto! Concordo em número, gênero e grau!
“Vitória da força sobre a técnica”. Poucas coisas me incomodam tanto quanto ouvir comentários desse tipo toda vez que Rafael Nadal derrota Roger Federer. Seja no saibro, na grama ou na quadra dura. A frase soa como inveja, quase recalque. Menospreza o vencedor. Pior de tudo, deixa de ver e apontar méritos extremamente óbvios do atual número 1 do mundo. Qualidades que Nadal deixou muito claras mais uma vez neste domingo, ao bater seu rival novamente e levantar pela sexta (!) vez o troféu de Roland Garros.
Federer tem mais golpes que Nadal? Claro que tem. O suíço tem alternativas e pode vencer subindo à rede, dando slices e curtinhas, assim como pode dominar a maioria de seus adversários do fundo da quadra. É um gênio. Indiscutível. O espanhol, por outro lado, tem um golpe capaz de derrotar Federer. Não quero subestimar o número 1 a ponto de afirmar que é um tenista de uma bola só, mas ressaltar que este um golpe, o forehand cheio de spin, é, entre todos do circuito mundial, o que mais incomoda o gênio suíço.
Aonde quero chegar? Simples. Todo mundo sabe que aquela esquerda é mortal. Nadal vem fazendo estrago com ela desde 2005. Se todos estão cientes disso, por que ninguém consegue fazer igual? A resposta, que pode machucar olhos dos puristas e fãs do tênis clássico, é igualmente fácil de explicar: talento. Isso simplesmente não se ensina. Provavelmente, há alguns milhares de professores de tênis no mundo tentando fazer seus pupilos copiarem o movimento de forehand do espanhol. Ninguém faz igual. E já passou da hora de todo mundo reconhecer o talento absurdo de Rafael Nadal. Dez Grand Slams assinam embaixo do que escrevo.
Outro conceito que subestima méritos do espanhol diz respeito ao seu físico. “Nadal é rápido demais”. “Esse espanhol só ganha na correria”. Quem já não leu dezenas de frases assim nos fóruns por aí ou aqui mesmo, nas caixinhas de comentários do blog? No entanto, Nadal talvez nem esteja entre os dez tenistas mais rápidos do circuito. O espanhol é veloz, sim, mas seu diferencial não está tanto em alcançar a bola, mas no que fazer com ela depois de alcançada. Hoje mesmo Federer cansou de executar belos backhands cruzados, angulados, e Nadal não só alcançava, como gerava aquele efeito absurdo, cruzava a bola de volta com seu forehand e voltava para o ponto. Quantos tenistas conseguem, com consistência, executar golpes posicionados como na foto abaixo? Isso também não se ensina. É talento.
Também me incomoda ouvir Federer dizendo, a cada derrota, que o jogo é sempre decidido “em sua raquete”. Basicamente, ele afirma que ganha os pontos quando consegue atacar com precisão. Quando não o faz, acaba perdendo – como aconteceu hoje. É uma constatação bastante verdadeira, mas vem em tom de resignação, quase justificando o revés. O problema é soa como “fui eu que perdi, não foi ele que ganhou”. Ao mesmo tempo, deixa de ressaltar o que está bem nítido: os jogos entre eles em Roland Garros sempre foram assim, e Nadal venceu todos. Imagino aqui que Nadal deva estar bastante satisfeito com esse modo de jogar.
Não sou louco de sugerir que Federer passe a jogar na defesa contra Nadal. Fisicamente, o espanhol leva vantagem e não me parece que fique mais provável um triunfo do suíço em uma partida muito longa. A questão é que Nadal – e todo mundo – sabe que Federer não tem a consistência no backhand para derrotá-lo em uma melhor de cinco sets no saibro. Não o fez até hoje e é bem provável que não consiga mais. Mérito do espanhol por desenvolver armas que não deixam seu adversário à vontade em jogo algum.
Notem que uso a expressão “armas”, no plural. Sim, porque ater-me ao forehand seria uma falha gigantesca. Nadal usa bem o saque angulado do lado da “vantagem” e varia com eficiência, direcionando bolas no corpo de Federer e buscando aces. O espanhol também não é nada bobo na rede. Neste domingo, chegou em ótimas curtas e ganhou pontos. Também venceu um ponto com um incrível voleio no reflexo. Nadal faz um pouco de tudo e faz tudo isso muito bem. Plasticamente, não é o tênis clássico que muitos gostam de ver, mas rotulá-lo como “tênis força” é menosprezar e mostrar desconhecimento de um esporte com tantas minúcias.
“Intelecto notável, que se afirma por méritos excepcionais”, define o “Dicionário Houaiss” para o verbete “talento”. Não dá para dizer, então, que a força mental e a concentração de Rafael Nadal fazem parte de suas habilidades? Um técnico ajuda neste quesito – um psicólogo, idem -, mas ninguém ensina, na mais ampla definição de ensinar, um tenista a se manter concentrado e lutando durante a quase totalidade de uma partida. Mais uma vez, caros leitores, para encerrar o assunto: Rafael Nadal tem talento demais.
fonte: http://globoesporte.globo.com/platb/saqueevoleio/
56 Gabriel 09/06/2011 9:57
Será que o jogo do SID sera televisionado???????
não achei nenhum link até agora…
Rafael Pimenta 09/06/2011 10:19
Não será televisionado, já que não ocorrerá na quadra central.
Gabriel 09/06/2011 10:04
ahh e não sei se vocês viram, esta lá no tenisnews
Bellucci descarta saibro e aumenta calendário no piso duro
pra mim isso é coisa do Larri.
55 Fabio Y. 09/06/2011 10:47
Cleto, Pessoal, vejam só o artigo publicado pela Lynn Barber no Times do último domingo. Está dando o que falar. Abs
Anyone for tension?
He’s the tennis superstar who has netted a fortune, has hordes of admirers and is happy with his girlfriend. Yet something’s bugging Rafael Nadal
Lynn Barber Published: 5 June 2011
If anyone else tells me what a lovely lad Rafael Nadal is, I shall scream. He is not a lad, he has just turned 25, which is admittedly young, but he is in his ninth year on the professional tennis circuit, has won nine Grand Slam titles and is worth at least £68m. And I didn’t find him lovely at all. When I finally met him in his hotel suite in Rome (he was playing the Rome Masters), he was lying on a massage table with his flies undone affording me a good view of his Armani underpants — Armani being one of his many sponsors, natch.
No doubt at this point all his millions of fans will start screaming with jealousy and resolving to kill me, but honestly, kiddos, it was a bit rude. He just lay there glowering at me while I perched awkwardly on a nearby table until eventually his PR, Benito Perez-Barbadillo, fetched me a chair. Benito remained in the background and whenever Nadal didn’t like a question (which was pretty much every time I asked one) he asked Benito to “translate”, which meant they conferred in Spanish till the PR delivered some smooth PR-y answer. Nadal’s command of English seemed highly variable but never great.
Everyone kept telling me that Rafa was so tired and had had a bad day. But then I was so tired and had had a bad day too, traipsing round the boiling Foro Italico stadium, surviving on bottled water, watching his boring match, waiting for his press conference, then hanging about with mobs of screaming fans waiting for him to emerge from the players’ entrance.
He eventually came out with a posse of security men, signed a few autographs, and was whisked off in his car. I was told to follow and meet him at his hotel, which turned out to be some characterless sports/conference complex miles outside Rome — it could have been in Croydon. His bad day only consisted of playing one short tennis match and signing a few autographs, which I thought was what tennis players were paid to do.
He admitted at the press conference that he had played badly, dropping a set to a completely unknown Italian, but he offered no excuses. However, other people were quick to offer them for him: it was the day of Seve Ballesteros’s funeral and Rafa adored Ballesteros.
When he went to sign his name on the TV lens (apparently one of those rituals they do at tennis tournaments), he signed Seve instead of Rafa. And, according to David Law, media director for the Aegon Championships at the Queen’s Club, who very kindly served as my guide to the tennis world, Rafa was definitely below par the day we met, and two days later was diagnosed with a virus. He then went on to lose the Rome finals to Novak Djokovic, having lost the Madrid Masters to him the Sunday before, so his position as world No 1 was looking shaky.
What do we know about Rafa Nadal? Only what his minders want you to. He was born in 1986 in Manacor, Majorca. His father is a businessman but the whole family is sporty — one uncle was a professional footballer known as the Beast of Barcelona. Another uncle, Toni, a former tennis semi-pro, taught Rafa to play tennis from the age of three, and encouraged him to hold the racket in his left hand, even though he is naturally right-handed. Rafa played in the Spanish juniors and was urged to go to tennis school in Barcelona, but he chose to stay in Majorca with his family; Uncle Toni has been his only coach throughout his career.
He started playing professionally when he was just 15 and won his first Grand Slam at 19. He lost his first two Wimbledons, but finally won against Roger Federer in 2008. For a while he seemed unstoppable, but then a string of knee injuries (tendinitis) meant he didn’t win a title for almost a year, and commentators started saying he might have to retire. He missed Wimbledon in 2009, partly because of injury but also because his parents split up and he was very upset — “For one month I was outside the world.” But he bounced back in 2010 and there has been no talk of tendinitis recently. However, he is now under threat from Djokovic.
Despite his vast wealth — £24m in winnings, probably twice that in sponsorship — everyone agrees that he is unspoilt, unchanged. His best friends are still the friends he made at school; his hobbies are football, golf and fishing. He goes back to his home town, Manacor, whenever he has time, and shares a big apartment block with his mother, sister, grandparents and Uncle Toni’s family. He also has a beach house at Porto Cristo, Majorca (not Ibiza, as the press sometimes says), where he likes to go fishing. Two years ago he bought a £2m beachfront house with its own golf course in the Dominican Republic, but has never stayed there. I asked if there was some tax reason for choosing the Dominican Republic, but he said no, he pays all his taxes in Spain, but he has some property investments in Mexico and thought it would be good to have a base near there for when he retires. He also has a charity foundation, run by his mother, which collaborated in opening a school with three tennis courts in India.
Anyway, back to the interview. Since I had such an unfettered view of his underpants, I decided to ask about them. Frankly, I’m amazed any underwear company should want to sponsor Nadal, given that his on-court behaviour always screams “My pants are killing me!” He can’t go five minutes without fiddling with them; they seem to get sucked into his buttocks and then he has to pull them out. I remember the first time I saw him at Wimbledon thinking: “Gosh, he’s supposed to earn millions… you’d think he could afford some decent underwear by now.”
Why is he always fiddling with his underwear? ‘That is something I am doing all my career, something that I cannot control’
I asked whether his contract stipulated that he should wear Armani underwear on court and he said: “I don’t have to but I am very happy to wear Armani because their underwear is fantastic.”
Then why is he always fiddling with it? “That is something I am doing all my career, something that I cannot control.” Has he ever tried to stop? “It is difficult for me because it bothers me all the time, and I play with different underwears — long, short — but it is impossible to stop.”
Perhaps it’s just another of those Rafa rituals that all his fans adore. Every time he comes on court, he waves at the crowd, sits down, gets his water bottles out of his bag, takes a sip from each, then carefully lines them up so that their labels all face precisely the same way.
It takes a long time and his opponent is meanwhile standing by the net, waiting for the coin toss, getting quite irritated, I imagine. Eventually, when Rafa has faffed and fiddled enough, he leaps to his feet and does a sort of Superman swoop across the court and starts jumping up and down in his opponent’s face while the umpire tosses his coin. Then he races to the baseline as if he’s dying to start the match and his opponent has been unfairly delaying things. The fans love it. What can I say?
I asked if he suffered from OCD, but of course this required translation and much conferring with his PR and produced the eventual answer: “It is something you start to do that is like a routine. When I do these things it means I am focused, I am competing — it’s something I don’t need to do but when I do it, it means I’m focused.” Does he have other rituals, perhaps in the locker room, before the match? “I always have a cold shower.” Any particular rituals before he goes to sleep? “No. I have to have the TV or computer on, but I turn it off if I wake up. What I normally do is have dinner, do some work with Rafael, my physio, then sleep.” Gripping stuff.
As far as I can see, Nadal has made only one (mildly) controversial remark in his life, and that was in 2009, when he criticised Andre Agassi for saying in his autobiography, Open, that he had taken crystal meth while he was still on the tour. Nadal said that tennis was a clean sport, and it was very bad of Agassi to suggest otherwise.
Was it really news to him that anyone in tennis took drugs? This required heavy conferring with his PR, but he eventually came back with: “Well, that’s something that’s all in the past. But I was shocked. I know Agassi did a lot of good things for tennis but that book wasn’t one of those things. You [Agassi] didn’t feel bad when you were playing and then you feel bad five years after you retire — it’s not a moral thing. Anyway, that is something that is impossible today. We have 25 drugs tests a year.”
Agassi also said in his book that he grew to hate tennis, having played it so relentlessly for so long. Nadal says that could never happen to him — he loves tennis — but he wishes the tour could be shorter. All the ATP players have to commit to playing 16 obligatory tournaments, but Nadal in addition always plays Barcelona, for the sake of his family and Majorcan friends; he also plays Qatar as preparation for the Australian Open, and Queen’s as preparation for Wimbledon, which means he plays 11 months a year. And of course, because he is rarely knocked out in the early rounds, he never gets time off.
“For sure,” he sighs, “the tour is not perfect. In my opinion, three months is the minimum time you should be off. If not, we have a shorter career. Everyone has a shorter career and it’s not good for the sport, not good for the players, not good for the fans.”
I asked if his history of knee injuries meant he would be more crippled when he is 50 than someone who had never played tennis. He said: “For sure. When you play 11 months of the year, mostly on hard courts, that’s what happens, yes.” So, it’s a hard life, and a very, very unnatural one. The players live inside a bubble surrounded by these great phalanxes of middle-aged minders, big-bellied habitués of the hospitality tent who don’t seem to have anything much to do except talk on their mobiles. If required to do so by a journalist like me, they will effuse about their “boy” and what a lovely lad he is, and how he loves his football and his fishing and is so close to his family, etc, etc, wheeling out their tired old stereotype of what a lovely lad consists of, and you think, hang on, your “boy” could eat 10 of you for breakfast — why do you talk so patronisingly about him?
And why do you find it so remarkable that he is still close to his family and still sees his old friends? Presumably because you’re the sort of sleazeball who dropped your old friends and family the minute you moved up in the world.
One journalist found it incredible that Rafa still had the same mobile phone a year after winning Wimbledon that he had the year before. Rafa (good man) said it was a perfectly good phone, it worked, why change it? But the journalist seemed to take this as evidence of an almost saintly degree of unworldliness, right up there with the Dalai Lama.
The degree of publicity control in sport is comparable to the heyday of Hollywood, when they had these great studio PR machines that took young actors as soon as they were signed and proceeded to invent their life stories for them. Merle Oberon was told she grew up in Tasmania, when she actually grew up in Bombay, which made life difficult when she had to give interviews in Australia. The game was exposed in Oscar Levant’s remark, “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin,” ie, before the studio got their mitts on her. And poor old Rock Hudson had to die of Aids before anyone could admit he was gay.
Anyway, it means that sports stars, like Hollywood stars of old, are forced to live within the boring and meagre straitjackets their publicity machines have crafted for them. But once in a while the machine breaks down, most memorably in the case of Tiger Woods. Here was a brilliant golfer whose minders and sponsors dictated that he was also Mr Wholesome, a clean-living family man and role model for “lads” around the world. And lo! He turns out to have a long, sleazy history with hookers. And the world — or at any rate his sponsors — throw up their hands and shout This is appalling! We are amazed, we are shocked to the core, we wash our hands of him. Whereas, in fact, if they were doing their jobs and knew anything at all about him, they would have known it was all a charade.
I wanted to ask Rafa about Tiger Woods and spent a long time before the interview plotting how I could best raise his name without looking too obvious, but then Rafa saved me the trouble by raising it himself. Almost out of the blue, having talked about Seve Ballesteros (usual paeans), he said: “But if I have an idol, I love Tiger Woods.”
Crikey. I almost fainted with excitement. Er, and did his opinion of him change when he found out? “No, it didn’t change my opinion of him because I don’t care about his personal life. Nobody must care about his personal life — Tiger Woods is a very important person in the world because he plays golf.” But when he’s been marketed as this great clean-living role model for the young and then it turns out…?
“Well, I don’t want to discuss about these things, but in my opinion” — which unfortunately required a great deal of translation and discussion with his PR, who eventually came back with: “He says Tiger never hurt anybody in the outside world, he only hurt himself. He is a role model for him on the golf course and also in public because he always behaved properly. But what he does in private is his personal life, nobody else’s, and Rafa says his problems with his wife are his problems with his wife, not anybody else’s.” Yes, but there’s a certain hypocrisy in allowing himself to be marketed as Mr Clean. This remark doesn’t seem to need translation because Rafa responds sharply: “Well. Anyway. Next question.”
Right. Which brings me to the subject of The Girlfriend. Her existence was unveiled to the world by Uncle Toni in 2008 (though unveiled is perhaps not the word) when he said Rafa had a childhood sweetheart back home in Majorca called Maria Francisca Perello, or Xisca for short. Nadal was quoted as saying: “She is perfect for me, because she is very relaxed and easy-going and I’ve known her for a long, long time. Our families have been friends for many years.”
Hardly the language of passion, you’ll agree, but at least from then on he had an official girlfriend, which made up for the fact that his sleeveless tops and bulging biceps reminded one inexorably of Freddie Mercury. But The Girlfriend remains a distant presence, never actually around.
She sometimes makes an appearance at his finals, among his family, but even long-time tennis insiders have never met her. Nadal says he sees her whenever he goes back to Majorca, but for a young man in peak physical condition, it doesn’t suggest the height of sexual fulfilment.
Anyway, I asked if he was going to marry The Girlfriend and he said flatly, No.
Me: “No??!!??!!”
Rafa: “Not now, no. I don’t have any plans in that way.”
Me: “Do you mean you’ve split up?”
Rafa: “No. I don’t talk about the girlfriend in public, but I have the same girlfriend since many years.”
Me: “When do you meet?”
Rafa: “Her house is very close to my house, so when I am in Majorca I see her, and when she has holidays sometimes she comes to the tournaments, but she cannot follow the tour around because she has to do her work. [She works for a big insurance company.] She has her life and I have my life.”
Me: “Do you think she’ll wait for you? To get married when you finish tennis?”
Rafa: “I didn’t ask her to.”
Me: “But if you only see her — what? — 30 days a year, it can’t be a very fulfilling relationship?”
Nadal, for the first time in our interview, turns his full attention on me, a laser stare, and for a second I can imagine what it must be like to stand on the baseline waiting to receive his serve.
“But do you care about my relationship?”
Well, no, I have to admit, as the ace whizzes past me, of course I don’t give a toss about his relationship, I’m just trying to interview him. Somehow this breaks the tension, and we both laugh.
Rafa: “I understand your point, but I never talk about my girlfriend. I have a fantastic relationship with her, we understand each other. It is not a problem for her if I travel every week, and for me not a problem if, when I am in Majorca, she has to work all day.”
Me: “Do you talk on the phone though?”
Rafa: “No. When I am in a tournament I have to concentrate. Sure, I talk every day with her.”
Me: “I’m confused now.”
Rafa: “Forget about my girlfriend.”
Me: “Do you call your mother every day?”
Rafa: “Yes. My mother, my sister, my father, everybody.”
I am confused.
I can only record that there was a big difference in the enthusiasm with which he said he phoned his mother and sister every day, and whatever he was saying, or not saying, about his girlfriend. I’ll be pretty amazed if he ever marries her, though.
According to the Majorcan press, they split up last year, then got together again. Before that there were rumours that he was “close” to the Danish player Caroline Wozniacki. There was also a curious episode a year and a half ago when he made a “steamy” video with the Colombian singer Shakira for her single Gypsy and was photographed having what looked like a romantic dinner with her. It seemed like an attempt to rebrand Nadal as a stud. But then the rebranding was cancelled when Benito revealed that he was present, along with Nadal’s manager, Shakira’s manager and half a dozen others, so it was hardly a tête-à-tête. And someone who had seen the outtakes of the Gypsy video told me they showed Shakira having to tickle Nadal to get him to smile.
Listen: I dare say Nadal really is a lovely man (though I refuse to say lad). But the point I’m trying to make is, whether he is or isn’t I wouldn’t know, and you wouldn’t either. He lives within this tight stockade of team Rafa, and sticks to the script his minders have written for him. It must require great discipline to be so controlled, but then it must require great discipline to be a world champion anyway.
Oh, for a McEnroe, a Connors, an Agassi! There was a time, o best beloved, when tennis players had temperaments, when they threw rackets, shouted at umpires and had sex in broom cupboards and quite often behaved very badly.
The sheer boredom of living on this treadmill without even the consolation of a regular sex life must wear anyone down
Nadal has never thrown a racket in his life — his Uncle Toni trained him not to.
And the tennis player he most admires is Björn Borg, whom he admires precisely because he had “ice in his veins”, which was what always made him so deadly dull to watch. But Borg, we might note, retired at 26, not from injury but because he was burnt out. All that discipline must take its toll on a young man.
Even more than the injuries, the psychological attrition of having to be on your best behaviour each day, to play match after match, to give press conference after press conference, to meet and greet sponsors, the sheer boredom of living on this treadmill without even the consolation of a regular sex life must wear anyone down.
And for Nadal, already the best may be over. He was No 1 when I started this article, but could be No 2 by the time you read it. I asked if he might retire at 26, as Borg did. “If I have injury I could. I really don’t know. Nobody knows the future. But it’s something I prefer to believe is not going to happen.”
Rafael Nadal will take on Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Andy Roddick at the Aegon Championships, at the Queen’s Club, June 6-12; http://www.aegonchampionships.com
Dani 10/06/2011 14:50
Eu adorei a Lynn Barber, finalmente alguém com coragem de criticar o Nadal, figura de quem, por algum motivo, a mídia morre de medo. E a própria Lynn foi ameaçada de morte por fãs do Nadal. Adoro jornalistas com coragem e não aqueles que seguem o que todos dizem e que elogiam o tenista que está ganhando.
54 leo borges 09/06/2011 11:16
Levantei as estatisticas dos 30 melhores do ranking nos tiebreaks. E surpresa _ Bellucci tem o 13o melhor desempenho, com 52,2%.
Somente 5 tem desempenho superior a 60%. Federer e’ o segundo com 66,2. Perde de novo pra Nadal ? Dessa vez nao. O n1 e’ ele, o cometa Milos Raonic com 67,9 %.
João Marcos 09/06/2011 14:58
Interessante.
Por que o Bellucci em 13o é uma surpresa.?
P.S. 13 em uma amostra de 30 certo?
53 Marcelo S. 09/06/2011 11:31
Todo mundo fala que as quadras de grama estão mais lentas – houve realmente mudança na grama? E em todas as quadras? Ou seja, as quadras de Queen’s, Halle e Wimbedon são similares?
Alguém sabe exatamente quais mudanças foram feitas?
O fato de jogadores de fundo ganharem atualmente não é uma prova de que a quadra está mais lenta – vide o Borg.
Aliás, li um reportagem em que o Sampras atribui a mudança muito mais às raquetes, que permitem melhores devoluções e passadas – na opinião dele, as quadras continuam rápidas como sempre foram!
Marcelo S. 09/06/2011 15:04
Mas o Sampras mesmo disse, pelo que entendo, que hoje é difícil fazer jogo de saque-voleio, devido à evolução das devoluções e passadas, fruto das raquetes e cordas melhores.
Eles quis dizer que as quadras não estão mais lentas, é o jogo que não permite mais saque e voleio! Pelo menos foi o que eu entendi, vejam no blog do dalcin.
Daniel Lira 09/06/2011 13:08
Jhonny boy,
Não sei não. O espanhol já jogou e derrotou jogadores como Ivanisevic, Roddick, Karlovic em quadras rápidas.
Parece que saque rápido não é problema para ele também.
JHONNY.DJOKOVIC 09/06/2011 12:30
Daniel Lira isto se o Nadal ver a cor do saque do Sampras, tenho ate pena.
Daniel Lira 09/06/2011 12:21
Em relação ao Sampras, fala pra ele ir para Wimbledon e sacar/volear contra o Nadal.
Aí depois, ele comenta sobre o resultado.
Daniel Lira 09/06/2011 12:08
Marcelo,
As gramas estão um pouquinho mais altas do que antes e as bolinhas são mais lentas também. Tudo isso faz com que o jogo na grama desacelere.
Abs.
Rafael Pimenta 09/06/2011 11:45
Pelo o que eu ouvi a mudança ocorreu em 2001, ou seja, se houve mesmo o Sampras ainda chegou a jogar nessas novas condições.
52 Chris 09/06/2011 12:27
quem me diz ai de novo, por favor, um site prá fazer um avatar?
Fabio Peixoto 09/06/2011 16:46
http://www.gravatar.com
51 leo borges 09/06/2011 13:05
Nadal ve a cor do saque de qualquer um.
O Sampras nao ia ver a cor da bola quando o Nadal dessa uma passada nele.