Rafael Nadal's last Tango doesn't have to end like a fairytale

ROLAND-GARROS
Nadal won’t risk anything before Paris

Rafael Nadal did the most he could do in Barcelona: he played. Nobody should have expected more than seeing him on the court, doing his best to say goodbye. He had the best possible week: he won a match and got to leave the court that bears his name under an ovation and with no new injury. He was always going to lose that match against Alex De Minaur. Nobody is helping him by saying he’s a favorite for this or that. He called it: it’s stupid, he’s a contender for no title right now.

Rafa will try to come and say goodbye on the court in Madrid and Rome. But will he slide his usual way and sweat his usual 200% on these courts to chase all the balls and all the points? Absolutely not. Why? Because he cannot both do that and make sure he can stand on the court in Roland-Garros. And if there’s a place that Rafael Nadal needs to be able to say goodbye to, it’s Paris. I’d go as far as saying that it’s for his mental health. Nadal having to retire from this sport without a last Tango at the French Open would be a tough wound to heal.

He told the press in Barcelona exactly what the situation was: he’s saving that body for Paris. “It wasn't today that I had to leave everything and die, in Paris, let it be what God wants. There I hope to be competitive and there is the time. Losing the first set I couldn't fight for the match and it was over. I play with what I have. Today, I couldn’t allow myself to play a three-hour match."

So what’s the plan until Roland-Garros? He will try to play in Madrid and Rome, to have a nearly complete “clay farewell” as he missed Monte-Carlo. And then he will give it all for Roland-Garros. Pete Sampras retired after winning the US Open 2002 and Nadal deserves the same career miracle. But he’s very far away from it now and it’s an expectation that even seems toxic for one who just wants to enjoy his last rodeo. So getting to see Rafael Nadal one last time on the Chatrier should be the only goal, for everybody.

“I hope to be in Madrid, accumulating days of training and days of matches. The normal thing is that it was my last match in Barcelona. Life sets the path for you and it is setting it for me quite clearly. I'm fine, in the end, I'm a fairly stable person emotionally speaking. I take things philosophically and analyze things correctly. In sports, generations pass and others will come. Everything has a beginning and an end, and it is not a drama.”

We should all get emotionally prepared for a repeat of this flood of tears. You know it’s happening.

MADRID
Alcaraz can’t swear he’ll be there

Some big things are up in the air for the Masters 1000 in Madrid. Will Nadal come and say goodbye, and will Alcaraz be able to defend his title? Both players are in “RSVP as pending” mode (please tell me you got the ref! Hit the reply button).

Alcaraz seems to be in a very tricky situation with that forearm injury sustained at Monte-Carlo. He still hasn’t started his clay season, unable to defend his title in Barcelona, so if he had to give up on Madrid and so on the 1000 points he got last year with that trophy, it would start to look pretty rough for Roland-Garros. Sure, he’d still have the week in Rome and, with his level of play, he could play catch-up real quick. But the idea of arriving in Paris as pressure-free as possible would be gone.

“I don't want to risk saying a date and not having it happen. I hope I make it to the Mutua Madrid Open”, Alcaraz told La Vanguardia. The young player - sometimes we forget he’s just 20! - also said he cried when he had to withdraw from Barcelona. “It was a very hard blow. I really wanted to come. My group of friends had already made reservations to come see me play. Except in Barcelona and Madrid, they never see me. I waited a whole year to get here. I don't usually cry over these things, but Sunday was very hard.”

Alcaraz still came to Barcelona, actually: to have a short press conference without questions and to attend an event from one of his sponsors. That’s also what’s at stake with that kind of player in the lead to a Grand Slam: the business. All these brands have spent months and money to plot campaigns for you, and you’re not going to be able to play? Well, that’s not ideal.

ROLAND-GARROS
“The goal is to win the French Open", Gauff

Coco Gauff has reached that stage of her career where leaving a Grand Slam without a trophy feels like a breach of contract. The US Open champion didn’t shy away from stating her ambition loud and clear regarding the clay swing and so Roland-Garros.

"For the clay court season this year, I'm really optimistic," Gauff said in Stuttgart. "Obviously, the goal is to win the French Open, but that's every season of any top player. Your goal should be to try to win the big tournament." The American hasn’t won a title on clay since 2021 at the Emilia-Romagna Open, so she’d love for 2024 to be the end of that streak. "I want to try to win Madrid or Rome or here [Stuttgart]. I kind of just want to get a recent clay title under my belt. So any of the ones along the next couple weeks would be nice."

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO 
Watch sports, it’s for your health

Science just gave us all the perfect excuse for our intense sports watching. We have to, it’s for our well-being. We swear. Says who? Well, researchers at Waseda University in Japan. “Sports viewing triggered activation in the brain's reward circuits, indicative of feelings of happiness or pleasure. Additionally, a noteworthy finding surfaced in the structural image analysis. It revealed that individuals who reported watching sports more frequently exhibited greater gray matter volume in regions associated with reward circuits, suggesting that regular sports viewing may gradually induce changes in brain structures.”

These legs need to chill

With the amount of traveling done by players, their teams, their families, and the media covering the sport, one has to wonder how many of them deal with the common restless legs syndrome. Or, if they don’t, how? Physician Andy Berkowski was quoted in this piece from the Washington Post, as stating that this restless legs syndrome is the third-most common sleep disorder. Brian Koo, associate professor of neurology at Yale, is joining Berkowski in giving tricks to fight this syndrome while traveling:

• Avoid evening or overnight travel altogether if possible. “If you’re changing time zones, adjust your schedule several days before the trip.”

• Don’t use over-the-counter sleep aids. “The OTC sleep aids that contain antihistamines will make RLS worse,” he says.

• Avoid alcohol and sugar while traveling. “Caffeine, sugar, and alcohol are culprits of RLS, especially when combined with sleep deprivation.”

• “Mild to moderate activity throughout a trip is essential,” Berkowski says. “Simple choices will mitigate symptoms: choose an aisle seat on a flight, avoid the moving walkway at the airport and walk beside it instead, board the flight or train as late as possible, stay standing in the airport before your flight, and on road trips, get out and walk briskly as often as needed.”

• A proper blood flow is required so Sarah Hans, a physician at United Vein and Vascular Centers, advises wearing compression socks or stockings while traveling to help with blood flow. “Simple exercises such as calf raises with your feet on the ground and pulling your knees toward your chest can help.”

QUESTION OF THE DAY 
Decisions, decisions…

BUSINESS / MEDIA
WTA’s partner goes the IPO way

• CVC Capital Partners, the European private equity firm that has invested $150 million in women’s tennis and owns 20% of the WTA’s commercial venture, has decided to list on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. They hope to raise $1,3 billion.

• Should tennis ask Nico Rosberg for a loan? The Formula One champion just raised €30 million to launch Rosberg Ventures and is expected to end at €75 million by the end of this year. Robergs Ventures will make investments in tech-focused venture capital firms.

• CBS Sports platforms have a new boss in town: Paramount Advertising has promoted Ryan Briganti as the new sports ads sales chief. Briganti has worked at the company for 16 years and was previously senior VP of ad sales for CBS Sports and CBS Sports Digital. He succeeds John Bogusz, who is retiring after 26 years with the company.

• CAA has appointed Alex McGuire to lead their sports media representation in the UK and Europe, reveals Variety. The agency is “extremely focused on the continued growth and expansion of CAA Sports’ reach and resources in the U.K., Europe and Asia, through the addition of best-in-class agents and executives and development of new service areas”, said Matthew O’Donohoe, CAA Sports International president.

PLAY HARD, TRAIN HARD, DRESS THE PART 
What are you wearing? AI

Nike launched AI-designed sneakers, sporting “A.I.R.” branding, ahead of the Paris Olympics. But you won’t be able to buy them for now, as only some top athletes (Kylian Mbappé for example) will get their feet in it. Would you even want to?

SOME BREAK POINTS 
Ladies at the Queen’s in 2025? If the ATP agrees

• No women have been at the Queen’s since 1973, and the LTA is set on changing that in 2025. Yet, plans to have a WTA 500 event the week before the ATP one, in an even bigger lead to Wimbledon, depends on how confident everyone is about keeping that grass healthy. The Guardian and the BBC report that the final decision to set up that WTA event the week after Roland-Garros will be made by convincing, or not, the ATP. The club is too small to host a joint ATP/WTA event.
  
  “We’ve got high confidence and significant evidence from the All England Club as to how grass courts wear over a two-week period,” said Scott Lloyd, the chief executive of the LTA. “The ATP are important partners of ours and we are working with them to try to ensure that the players are happy and comfortable that the surface can sustain use.”
  

• No surgery for Andy. Murray made his choice regarding the treatment of that ankle and he opted to keep the surgeon away. “The latest update from Andy is that he is now out of the walking boot and will not be having surgery on his ankle," a spokesperson said.

  "His rehab is going well and he is hoping to start hitting again on the court soon. As yet he doesn't have a date yet for returning to competition." Murray’s name is also on the entry list for Roland-Garros. All fingers and all toes crossed.
  

• The Laureus World Sports Awards will happen in Madrid this year, on Monday and, as often, tennis stars have answered the call. Garbiñe Muguruza, Katie Boulter, Alex de Minaur, Elena Rybakina, and Stefanos Tsitsipas will attend the event. Usain Bolt, Martina Navratilova, Boris Becker, and Nadia Comaneci are also on this super VIP guest list.

EDITOR’S PICKS 

READ: Amor Towles, what else? I’ve loved everything he has written so far so there is no reason why his new book, Table for Two, which is released this month, would be an exception.

LISTEN TO: The Business Case For Women's Sports explores “every corner of the women’s sports industry from the field to the front office. Hosted by Caroline Fitzgerald, this podcast features interviews with leaders in women's sports.”

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