PARIS – Rafael Nadal is happy in Paris, and that should not be news, after all he is the owner of 14 titles at Roland Garros. But behind the smiles, the jokes and the ironies that he displayed on Tuesday on Philippe Chatrier Centre Court there are also some dark clouds, some lingering doubts in the Spaniard’s left hand.
‘I’m not well,’ said a sweaty Nadal dressed in white Wimbledon to his compatriot Anabel Medina, captain of the Billie Jean King Cup, while showing her the fingers of that hand.
It all took place in the immensity of the most important stadium in the history of Spanish sport. In addition to Nadal, owner of those 14 titles, there were Carlos Moya, champion in 1998, David Ferrer, twice finalist, and Carlos Alcaraz, champion last month.
Nadal asked Medina if there was water. And there was, of course, but not in the plastic bottles so common on the ATP Tour.
A water bottle was needed and it had to be filled from a jerry can placed inside a cooler on centre court. It took Nadal a couple of minutes to do it, he couldn’t open the tap, Medina helped him.
‘Is there any glue left?’ Nadal asked his doctor Angel Ruiz Cotorro again as he adjusted the bandages on his fingers for the umpteenth time.
The afternoon included other phrases such as ‘I have to rest’ or ‘I have not recovered’. On the other side of the net, his coach, Moya, and Davis Cup captain Ferrer.
Nadal is, once again, an enigma. In a 2024 in which he played just six tournaments and 17 matches after a 2023 in which he hardly set foot in an official competition, the Spaniard is aiming for a good Olympic Games. Of course, in his case that means a lot, as he won gold in singles in Beijing 2008 and in doubles in Rio 2016.
But the passage through Bastad, where he reached his first final in 25 months, deepens the doubts: the resounding defeat in the final against the Portuguese Nuno Borges, a player against whom in normal conditions it is unthinkable that he would lose, makes one wonder in what form Nadal arrives at Paris 2024.
Ruiz Cotorro had his work cut out for him: Nadal frequently stopped training to adjust the bandages on his left hand, while joking with the doctor about the ‘glue that expired in 1972’ with which he was trying to fit those bandages.
What’s wrong with Nadal’s hand? At the end of the training session, Ferrer smiled at CLAY’s question.
‘Nothing, nothing, it’s better than ever!’.
At the insistence, the Davis Cup captain put the joke aside: ‘Expired tape, nothing else’.
Nadal will open doubts about his game, but no one can deny him the good humour he exhibited throughout his practice. When, towards the end, he went over to greet Alcaraz, his partner in the Olympic doubles, the Mallorcan brought up a key issue, that of the modest accommodation conditions in the Olympic Village.
Tennis stars are not used to sleeping in cardboard beds or having the right amount of towels. Nadal proposed a solution to Alcaraz.
‘I don’t know if we shouldn’t get some towels in the locker room,’ said the 14-time champion.
‘Let’s make a towel raid!’, the recent champion replied amused.
