There are phrases that, over the years, cease to be obvious and take real dimension of the profound truth they contain. The Cuban Pablo Milanés sang it: "Time passes and we are getting old." It seemed simple, it seemed a truism, but those eight words, in reality, are not so obvious and apply perfectly to the feeling that at this time crosses everyone, or almost everyone, at Roland Garros, hours before the start of a new edition of the second Grand Slam of this 2023.
It is that tennis, with the Swiss Roger Federer and the Spanish Rafael Nadal, did not make believe that time not only did not pass, but that these two phenomena made them better. And we, happily, enjoyed how the passage of time turned them into immortal geniuses.
Today, however, Paris, tennis and we see how that magical illusion of immortality is diluted in this sad reality. We barely accept that Federer is no longer on the tour. And now, after 18 years, we have to accept that in Paris there will not be Nadal, its maximum winner, its owner. And he is missed.
All of Nadal's titles at Roland Garros. Photo: AFP
And if we are shaken by that ugly feeling of orphanhood, it is worth putting yourself for a minute in the shoes of Rafa, who from 2005 to 2022 was always present in Bois de Boulogne. What will go through his head? What will you feel when you watch it on TV? It's something he's never done in the last 18 years. It was 18 years in which he won 112 matches and suffered only three defeats – the Swedish Robin Soderling, in 2009, and the Serbian Novak Djokovic, in 2015 and 2021, his only executioners. In that span, we know, he was crowned 14 times. A fabulous record that only Rafael Nadal could take away from the previous year's Rafael Nadal.
Of course, this does not take the Spaniard by surprise, who no longer even appears in the top ten of the world ranking and will crumble in a couple of weeks. There are already many years of injuries and discomfort, which have been shaking him and that put in doubt not only for the possibility that he can win once again, but simply that he can compete.
Therefore, it will be a challenge and an effort not to live this edition with a melancholic tinge, because its absence is nothing more or nothing less than the passage of time. It is the absence prior to the farewell. And it hurts.
Times of change
Novak Djokovic is looking for his second Grand Slam of the year. Photo: AP
It is enough to review the table to take a greater dimension that we live in a moment of transition in this Roland Garros 2023. As usual, and there are never surprises, the main draw has 128 players. But there are only two who could repeat as champions: Djokovic, without the ideal shooting on slow courts but in search of his second Grand Slam title of the year, and an aging Stan Wawrinka. These are times of change.
While missing Nadal, the rest, by the way, renews expectations. There are several who dream of lifting the Musketeers' Cup. It is that, without Rafa, the challenge looks a little less extreme for those who intend to transform themselves into the new heroes on the sacred brick dust of Paris. Who prevents, for example, Carlos Alcaraz, already as precocious number one in the world, to dream of the madness of proclaiming himself "the heir to the throne" that is vacant.
Carlos Alcaraz, Rafael Nadal's successor at Roland Garros? Photo: Reuters
Of course, it will serve Alcaraz and all those who come from behind to study the recent past. Federer and Nadal showed us that in the future there is overcoming, hope and illusion. It is a message that the new generation will have to embrace. Not everything is immediate. Although there is something that will be eternal. And, perhaps, unchangeable. Nadal will forever be the supreme king and the Roland Garros region will forever be his sacred land.
Paris, France. Special for Clarín. See also
