Los Olympics They are the ultimate example of sport. They are every four years and you have to arrive at the specific day and time (or week), and nothing happens… Or if it does, know how to overcome it. The tennis player had to do the latter Sarah Smilesone of the Spanish medalists in Paris last August, bronze in doubles forming a pair with Cristina Bucsa after a few intense days in the capital of France. «At first I had a sudden injury to my arm and I was playing with anesthesia all week. They had to get the anesthetic right to the millimeter because if it didn’t go well and he would fall asleep.. It was a dilemma every day what will happen. And take all of that inside, not say anything to Cristina so she wouldn’t worry, warm up on the other hand so she wouldn’t see me,” reflects Sorribes.
In the quarterfinals against the Kichenok twins, from Ukraine, they came back from 7-3 in the final supertiebreak. In the semifinals they were clearly defeated by the Russians Andreeva and Shnaider, but they recovered to win the bronze against the Czech duo Muchova and Noskova (6-2 and 6-2). «When we were 5-2 in the second, and 40-15, Cristina served and I told her: “We are very far away.” And she looked at me saying: “But you’re stupid, we have one point left.” But that was my mentality all week,” explains Sara. And Cristina is peculiar. The first time they played together had been just three months before, in May at the Caja Mágica of the Mutua Madrid Open, by chance, because Sara was left without her usual partner, who was injured. They raised the trophy. «Cristina already told me then: “We are going to win a medal.” And I: “But we are not even classified,” Sorribes reveals.
The Olympic week, and the injury in particular, made him spend more time with Rafa Nadal because they shared many moments on a stretcher being treated. He considers him “special.” “He has done atrocious things, he has made us all jump on the couch. I like his way of understanding tennis and life,” he says. He had a great time as a group. “Being able to share a team with Carlos, Rafa, Pablo, they made me have a great time. With Marcel [Granollers] I had breakfast every day and we had some very interesting conversations. When he left, I told him that I missed him,” Sara recalls. He met almost all of them again last week in Malaga, where the Billie Jean King Cup and the Davis Cup were played.
calendar madness
Not even a week has passed since that competition and Sara is already rushing the holidays. meets at the Chamartín Tennis Club with a small group of journalists, a meeting organized by one of its sponsors, Nara Segurosto take stock of a year in which he has had that bronze in doubles as a “dream come true”, but more difficulties in the individual. «It had never happened to me that it was so difficult for me to win games. Until Madrid I didn’t win consecutive games. From there it began to turn around and reached a very high point in Paris. Thanks to that I have been able to finish the year better than I started it,” he admits. After playing in the capital of Spain he returned to the “top 50” (45th in the world), but he has finished 105th and is now “there, there” to enter directly into the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the course.
Rest is scarce, but tennis does not stop, which is why many tennis players like Alcaraz or Medvedev have finished the season burned out. Garbiñe also retired young for that reason. «For me the calendar is one hundred percent saturated. In fact, if you want to continue playing right now you still can. There are a lot of trips, and that is exhausting because you lose one day, the next day you travel and the next you play with great tension, and long trips,” analyzes the player from Castellón. «And then, the level is equal and there are few easy games. There are so many days and months of tension that in the end it is normal for your head to explode,” adds Sara, an example of a constant tennis player who is having a fantastic career, although the results in Spain of Nadal, Alcaraz, Arantxa… blur the reality. “The thing is winning a Grand Slam is very difficult. What I have done in my career is more than I could imagine, but with that mentality it would be nothing. I know how difficult it is, how complicated it is to work every day. We don’t have a Sabalenka, but I think Paula is doing very well and there are good players like Jessica [Bouzas]who is about 50 in the world and is 22 years old. In boys comes Landaluce, Rafa Jodar… Maybe after Carlos it will take another number one to emerge, but that does not mean that the health of Spanish tennis is not good. There is no longer the Federation as before in the CAR, but there are good coaches in the schools, sometimes the grassroots ones are even better than what they train us, and that plus our character and the way we play…” , he explains.
This is how you prepare to play three or four hours
In 2024, Sorribes played the fourth longest match in history, since the “Open era”, against the Chinese Gao Xinyu, 4 hours and 15 minutes. He won it. In the Billie Jean King Cup her match against Linette was close to four hours. She lost there, but her rival even admitted that she hated playing against her because she knows what awaits her on the court. «I really think that when the game lasts three hours I have a better chance of winning. For me it is a matter of doing it every day. You have been training two or three hours of tennis at 200 percent since you were 14, with all the enthusiasm, and when you reach a certain moment you are already used to it. A four-hour game doesn’t tire me out mentally more than a normal day’s training.. One has to prepare on a daily basis,” he concludes.
