He’s a god, a modern day god, like Zeus with a tennis racket.
And we were fortunate enough to be in his house, his Mt. Olympus, on the hallowed grounds of Rolland Garros for La Decima.
As soon as he walked onto the court you just knew it was fate. You could feel it in the air, hear it in the crowd, and see it in his eyes.
Every fiber in his body moved with such purpose, as if each movement was predetermined, coded in some mystical language, to know where and when to be, in patterns familiar and foreign, predictable yet not so, filled with ritual and routine.
Clean the baseline, tug on the shorts, brush the hair, bounce the ball, toss up, arch and serve…
Then be relentless. One and two were something. Three, four and five were something else. Six, seven, eight and nine were unheard of. But ten, not nine but ten, now that’s impossible. C’est Impossible! Until Sunday, when fate took the reigns and impossibility faded to black. Ten, on clay, in his house, bravissimo!
Rafa, thanks for La Decima.
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