One day after losing in Turin against Alexander Zverev and being left out of the ATP Finals, Carlos Alcaraz, the world number three, landed in Malaga this Saturday at noon to join the Spanish Davis Cup team. The Murcian arrived about 24 hours after Rafael Nadal, his idol and the idol of so many, was seen for the first time playing on the center court of the José María Martín Carpena Sports Palace ahead of the tournament, in which Spain starts the Wednesday against the Netherlands (5:00 p.m., Movistar) but in which, above all, The great icon of Spanish sport says goodbye to the world of tennis. Nadal, champion of 22 Grand Slams, king of the clay court and possessor of a mentality with which he has managed to be recognized throughout the world as one of the most formidable competitors in the history of sport, will play his last matches at the age of 38. between November 19 and 24 in the capital of Malaga, a city that has dedicated itself to the removal of the myth in his last week as a professional.
The fever for the Balearic Islands has led hotels to register an occupancy close to 90% in the middle of the low season in a town as touristy as this one, where there is a giant canvas with the image of Nadal hanging in the Ciudad de Málaga Athletics Stadium — visible from the Martín Carpena -, banners and screens throughout the municipality – also on public transport – while the Junta de Andalucía waits for the economic return due to the significance of the Davis, which also coincides for the first time in the same city with the Billie Jean King Cup, is ten times higher than the ten million euros that the regional administration invested in hosting this edition. Tickets to see the national tennis icon on Tuesday in the tie against the Netherlands have been sold out for weeks and are being resold at exorbitant prices. “It is probably the most special tournament I will play in my career, due to the circumstances and because the Davis Cup has always been a tournament that I would love to win one day,” Alcaraz said on Friday.
Under that feeling of a historic moment, of saying goodbye to a myth that began as a professional in 2001 and that leaves 23 years later against his will after a frustrating fight against injuries, there is also the uncertainty of what role Nadal will assume in the Spanish team, led by David Ferrer and which includes, in addition to the Spaniard and the Murcian, Roberto Bautista, Pedro Martínez – he replaced Pablo Carreño due to injury – and Marcel Granollers.
Nadal’s latest statements, given on Friday in an interview with the Royal Spanish Tennis Federation, also did not shed light on his state of fitness for his last dance as a tennis player. “First we have to see how I’m feeling these days in training, and if I really don’t see myself ready to have a chance of winning the individual, I’ll be the first one who won’t want to play, the first one I’ll talk to. captain,” insisted the man from Manacor, who has not competed in an official match – last October he fell first against Alcaraz and then against Djokovic in a million-dollar exhibition in the capital of Saudi Arabia – since the Olympic Games last summer.
There, in Paris, where he played doubles with the Murcian, he also lost against the Serbian in singles in the second round. He arrived in Malaga on Thursday, and although he has trained since then – also today – he has not yet clarified whether or not he is ready to play one of the two singles matches in the qualifying round – there is also a doubles, and all are the best of three sets. —. “More or less I have been able to do a good preparation, that is why I am here,” he said. “You have to look at it day to day, I haven’t competed for a while and the reality is that I want to live this week, no matter what. And in this sense, with the hope of closing a very beautiful and long stage of my life, living these last moments with hope, with normality too and from the acceptance of what is a beginning and an end,” added Nadal, who also He stated that there are options to lift the title.
Nadal’s first great joy as a professional was precisely in 2004, in the second Davis Cup that Spain won, when he knocked down Andy Roddick in the final in Seville in a key match against the United States to secure the second point of the tie. Two decades later, after more than two horrible years due to injuries, he is preparing to say goodbye to the racket with the hope of taking, along with Alcaraz, the prodigy who has taken his enormous baton in Spanish tennis, his sixth Saladera.
