It is noon, hunger begins to tighten and Paula Badosa can feel the emotion.
She has just beaten Belinda Bencic and made history, becoming the first Spanish woman to reach the semifinals of the Madrid tournament.
When he signs 6-4 and 7-5 (in 1h 49m) that directs him towards a level to be discovered, he throws his hands to his head, kneels on the surface of the second court of the Caja Mágica and then kisses the beaten earth, taking a few bits to his mouth.
He gets rid of them as best he can.
And celebrate, of course.
The occasion deserves it.
The dream lives on.
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Paula Badosa explores her limits
40 'eyes' to sing the 'out' in the center
Never had such unpleasant earthiness been so pleasant.
She had never gone this far in an event of this level and her career is beginning to take flight, because victory automatically brings her a leap on the world list: she is already among the 50 best in the world, climbing from 62nd to 42nd.
In other words, it becomes the second best Spanish female racket, only behind Garbiñe Muguruza (13th).
The steering wheel exerted just over a year ago, when he broke a good handful of shackles and got rid of a heavy psychological burden, has an effect.
It is his best result so far. In her first access to the final draw, having arrived as a guest, she has linked four victories and has broken the roof of a national player in Madrid, elusive territory since the tournament, which started in 2002, joined the women seven years later. Until today, Carla Suárez had signed the most meritorious track, the quarters of 2015 (Serena Williams) and 2018 (Caroline Garcia). So he is happy, although experience has taught him that there is no time to recreate and refers to tomorrow, Thursday.
“It is something that I did not expect, not at all.
I'm overcoming the pressure and managing my nerves well.
It's a week of emotions and every day I'm getting over it, ”says the 23-year-old Catalan, born in New York because her parents, models, traveled there for their profession.
“When I won, I remembered my team, Javi [Martí, his coach], David [his physical trainer].
A few months ago I would not have endured this type of match, and now I am being able to do it ”, he is grateful in parallel to the duel between Ashleigh Barty and Petra Kvitova, from which his rival will come.
Ladies and gentlemen ... introducing the first 🇪🇸 lady to reach the semi-finals of the #MMOPEN!
🎥 @WTA pic.twitter.com/iucvmEz1L2
- #MMOPEN (@MutuaMadridOpen) May 5, 2021
During the attention to the journalists, she says that the night before she received a message from Gerard Piqué congratulating her - "he is happy for me and I thank him, because I am from Barça and he is a Catalan player" - and that he continues to remember his first coach, recently passed away. "He laid the foundation," he continues, while acknowledging being "very emotional and very expressive," and that if somewhere he dreamed of achieving something important, it was in the Caja Mágica. “If a couple of years ago they told me I'm going to do some semis here, I wouldn't have believed it. We have worked hard ”, he continues with that majestic plural that underlines the importance of the move to Madrid and the hiring of Martí for his launch.
So, Badosa was having a hard time, she had come out of a depression that annulled her because success, she says, came too soon, when she was a teenager. It was in Paris, 2015. There he conquered the Junior Roland Garros and many birds flew over his head, too many. Too much eagerness to look like Maria Sharapova. “When I won there I hit the ball very well, but I was very unconscious and didn't know what it took to be a professional tennis player. In the end, it did me more harm than good. An award came to me too early, when maybe I didn't deserve it ”, he explains.
In any case, his name returns to the scene.
They are the third semi-finals this season - before Lyon and Charleston - and, above all, the feeling that he is beginning to unravel the tangles of adolescence.
"The day to day is key," he says.
“Tennis is very tough and every week you win or lose by a difference of one or two points.
Now it is different.
I try to isolate myself from outside noise.
It is the best moment of my career, sure, but tennis has a bad thing: tomorrow I have to play again.
I must recover.
It's the bad part of this sport, but I gladly accept it.
I can't stop believing, I'm going to go all out ”, he concludes before meeting with his loved ones.
MEDVEDEV GOES BACK TO DAVIDOVICH
For a long time, Alejandro Davidovich seemed to have Daniil Medvedev on the ropes.
However, the three in the world, allergic to this clay and coming from three bad weeks due to the covid, ended up recomposing himself and finally managed to overcome the Malaga: 4-6, 6-4 and 6-2, in 2h 12m.
In any case, the Russian made it very clear that he does not finish catching the point of the earth: "I do not like to play on this surface!", He yelled in a recess, while hitting his racket against the ground.
In any case, he won an appointment with Cristian Garín (6-3 and 6-4 to Dominik Koepfer).
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