The opinion of Fernando Gómez | Nadal: my walk through the media and two great vital tips

Thanks to my journalistic work as a narrator, analyst and data contributor, I have had the opportunity to experience most of these titles very closely and on several occasions live on the track. Even so, I must confess that if I send my thoughts to the past, the most exciting moment I have experienced was spent alone (I preferred not to attend the invitations of friends to see the final together and something similar happened with those of some radio stations) in the living room of the house on that hot afternoon of the first Sunday of the month of July 2008, the 6th, with the distant sound of the neighbors cooling off in the pool when Nadal he made good the saying that the third time lucky and in his third consecutive match for the definition at Wimbledon beat Swiss Roger Federer in the fifth set. I have already expressed in this same digital space that I am not interested in the discussion about who is the best male tennis player of all time, but that day I even shed tears for the historic moment that was taking place for tennis in my country. A Spaniard was once again crowned champion at the All England Club 42 years after the long-awaited Manolo Santana achieved it and 14 years after the victory on the same stage of the companion of so many hours in the booth at the microphones, Conchita Martínez. By the way, that afternoon she was the commentator in the coverage that the colleagues from Cuatro and Canal + carried out simultaneously.

I only remember having experienced another similar moment of emotion. It had been seven and a half years earlier. On the afternoon of Sunday, December 10, 2000 at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, ​​at the time when Juan Carlos Ferrero surpassed the Australian Lleyton Hewitt with that passing blow at 16 hours and 53 minutes and gave Spain the first Davis Cup in its history. The next thing that comes to mind is the strongest hug I’ve given Manuel Poyán in the more than three decades since we’ve been partners. As is known, Nadal was also there, at the age of 14, in the role of flag bearer for the Spanish team. Poyán and I, who were accredited in the final by www.eurosport.es, were paying attention throughout the weekend to the box from which Carlos Moyà, accompanied by his romantic partner at the time, the presenter Patricia Conde, supported the Spanish team, despite having been left out of the chosen quartet in which our current partner was also Álex Corretja, Albert Costa and Joan Balcells. In my case, I had not had the opportunity to return (not even during my work at the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games) to the venue where I had been lucky enough to narrate for Spanish Television the first windsurfing competition to be held in a venue closed with a large swimming pool and waves caused by an artificial wind on the night of March 28, 1992.

We return to Nadal’s Grand Slam titles. Except for the two from Wimbledon, I have been able to count, comment, analyze or contextualize all the others. Even in about half from the same stage, what we know in the middle as on site. After the final of the US Open 2019, in which with a totally different start than last January 30 in Melbourne, Nadal had to suffer to resist the spectacular reaction of Russian Daniil Medvedev, I have contributed my experience in the two finals that the Balearic Grand Slam has played (in addition to Australia 2022, the autumn Roland Garros of 2020 against Serbian Novak Djokovic) for the listeners of Radio Nacional de España with the team led by Javier of Diego in the narration. Microphones where they have not yet counted a defeat in a Grand Slam final of a Spaniard with me on the broadcast. With the sound technicians of the Casa de la Radio in Prado del Rey modulating my voice, there are already 5 of Nadal’s 21 major titles that I have counted there and also the success of Garbiñe Muguruza against Venus Williams in 2017, when she became the second Spaniard to win Wimbledon, 23 years after Conchita Martínez, who already guided her from start to finish in that two-week London adventure.

And to conclude my comment I return to the beginning. I do it by rescuing what has caught my attention the most from what I have heard and read in the media about Nadal’s excellent comeback to the detriment of Medvedev. Due to the closeness to the protagonist and the ability to correctly express any good underlying message, the sender cannot be other than the protagonist’s coach and uncle, Toni Nadal. I found the article that he wrote in El País on February 2 to be very interesting and that was recommended to me by the illustrious fan, follower of many sports disciplines and, in my case, provider of statistics that are very useful to me, Agustín Hernández Paniagua. The text was titled “The essential school of happiness” and in it I selected two messages that I want to share with the reader who has accompanied me until here. These are two brilliant tips, which, despite their clarity, are not usually taken into account, and which I intend to accompany me for the rest of my life. In essence, they are the following: 1) effort does not guarantee success, but “no effort” almost certainly fails; and 2) when the road is full of adversity, if you fight lawfully against them, the objective is almost never achieved, but one day it will be achieved and that conquest will compensate for all previous attempts.