“Everything changed the day Tony said the Parisian public was stupid” | Relief

More than 4,000 shares and 20,000 likes well explain the desire to see the cover that L’Equipe was going to dedicate this Friday to Rafael Nadal. after the Spanish tennis player announced his retirement on Thursday morning. “AND Earth stopped” were the words chosen French sports newspaperwith a close-up photo of Nadal, who appears to be looking away transcendental.

The ground stood still, notably, at 11:27 a.m. Thursday when Nadal’s team pressed enter and posted a video on their networks in which he announced he would hang up his racquet at the Davis Cup final in November. This will be the end of the journey, the main stage of which will be Paris, the headquarters of L’Equipe.

The French newspaper became a direct witness to the special relationship that Nadal maintains with France. From the initial outcries and numerous doping accusations – from puppets, Yannick Noah and even the Minister of Sports – to the statue erected at Roland Garros and the powerful photograph of a tennis player carrying the Olympic torch in front of the Eiffel Tower at the opening ceremony of the Paris Games. The ending is beautiful, but the road was not easy.

“Nadal’s story in France is incredible,” Julien Reboullet told Relevo.Tennis magazine editor-in-chief L’Equipe. “Apart from the 14th Roland Garros, his first tournament outside Spain was played in France, in Auray, in 1998. And then, during his first participation in Roland Garros, he went and won.”

And he still didn’t win. Because andAt Roland Garros 2005, he experienced a very difficult episode in the 1/8 finals match, in which he met the Frenchman Sebastian Grosjean. At one point in the second set, the Frenchman claimed that Nadal’s ball had bounced out of bounds, but the chair umpire refused to come down to check it, infuriating the player and the 15,000 French people filling the stands. The match had to be stopped for almost ten minutes because of the whistle. The recipient of such anger was not Nadal, but the referee, but that day the Spaniard realized how belligerent the public could be. with Roland Garros to protect his team.

“The public behaved incorrectly on the tennis court, but everyone does what they want. It was stupid, the referee was right.“, said the Mallorcan that day after beating the Frenchman 6-4, 3-6, 6-0, 6-3 en route to his first Musketeers Cup.

Boos in his first defeat

Nadal would win this Roland Garros, as well as the next three, in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and become the undisputed king of clay court. His performance in 2008, a season in which he won the Musketeers Cup without giving up a set or giving up defeating Roger Federer in the finalcaused a roar in the chain because no one could beat Nadal in three sets on clay. Even Federer himself.

The Swiss, already at that time the best tennis player in history, the only thing missing in his career was to conquer Roland Garros. But with Nadal in front of him, it seemed impossible. AND The French public wanted Federer to win the title in Paris. This was one of the reasons why Nadal was booed by the Parisian crowd in the 2009 round of 16.when he lost to Robin Söderling the first match of his career in Paris.

“The crowd reaction in that match was incredible. When someone wins everything so easily… People in France wanted to see Federer win Roland Garros, which is why the crowd in Chatrier reacted so stupidly.“, Julien Reboullet now recalls.

Toni Nadal, who was still Nadal’s coachexploded in front of the microphones and left a phrase that resonated at Roland Garros. “The Parisian public is quite stupid. The French are concerned about the Spaniard’s triumph. When he trains, he is one of the players with the most expectations, but when he plays the way they want him to play, he fails. Basing happiness on the failure of another seems like a bad philosophy to me,” Tony said in an interview with Cadena Ser.

“That episode when Tony called the public stupid became a turning point in the relationship between Nadal and France. From that moment on, everything changed. I remember that we are in L’Equipe The next day we published an editorial criticizing the public’s behavior. It was important to Tony that we write this. And then, Since 2010, Rafa has become a crowd favorite.”adds Julien Rebullet, who visited L’Equipe.

Dope and statue

All disputes with doping problem They arrived later, but this did not at all affect Nadal’s relationship with the French public.. Noah’s famous column about the “magic potion” of Spanish athletes was published in November 2011, the attack by the puppets and their giant syringes occurred in 2012, and the accusations of the Minister of Sports Roselyne Bachelot, which ended in the conviction of justice, occurred in 2016. But Roland Garros, with the exception of isolated cases, was almost a heap of oil for Nadal.

“At the time the charges were brought, it was very difficult for Nadal and his team to understand how to deal with it. But I think it didn’t change anything in Rafa’s relationship with the French public. “It didn’t have any impact”– Julien Reboullet continues on the phone.

The Spaniard triumphed again in Paris in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022.becoming the first and only tennis player to win the same Grand Slam tournament fourteen times. The French Federation erected a statue of him. at Roland Garros venues in 2021 and There are even voices that ask to rename the track Philippe Chatrier.a sign of the love that France now professes for Nadal. The image of center court saying goodbye a few months ago after losing in the first round will forever remain in my memory. A gesture that can only be understood out of respect and admiration.

“There is so much Nadal history in France… In the end, it was as if someone from the family had left us. Nadal is also our champion, a little bit. He lived so much in France that he became one of us.“adds Julien Reboullet. “No one here will forget that October day when Nadal announced his retirement. “We’ll have to get used to the idea that we won’t see him again at Roland Garros.”.