| Clark, Angeles City |
Rafa Nadal, then the world no. 2, was sitting upright on one of the two most fought-over benches in Melbourne Park. It was a relaxing shot after the fervent, if not ferocious, exchanges of pounds and grunts between him and the equally determined warrior on the other side of the court.
His movements were in a precise calculation: his eyes were laser-focused, his jaw was clenched and his lips were tightly sealed, depriving the wishful of his inviting and impregnating smile. He rolled up his dripping shirt that earlier veiled one of God’s most beautiful creations and wiped the drops of exhaustion off his knitted brows. He acknowledged the need to work on his unforced errors and receiving points, which caused him two sets of loss to the top seed Nole Djokovic.
He stood up, unclenched his jaw, unsealed his lips, and shook his still drenching body tightly hugged by an ensemble of neon green shirt, blue headband and wristband, and white shorts. He walked towards the court, evidently drained of energy but not spirit. He surveyed the other side of the court with an aura of an unforgiving lion.
But he was up against the widely considered the greatest returner in the history of tennis, the human wall whose scrawny physique could counterpunch any fired shots – fast or slow, drop or deep, cross-court or down-the-line. Rafa knew this, especially with his less-than-impressive 2-6 score in the third set. He was trailing behind at the first half of the fourth set and just following the tempo of the game his opponent furtively and slyly dictated until the score reached 4-3.
He seemed to realize that the Norman Brooks trophy was slipping away from his hands. He flexed his world-renowned biceps, toughened up his left wrist, and whacked the ball as deep as he could to generate more insane spins that would force his challenger to commit unforced errors. The ball twirled like a drunken cannonball; its swoosh shushed the rowdy audience eagerly awaiting the counterstrike. It returned with a slower, more manageable spin, touching down at the exact spot Rafa had hoped for – outside the court. With the Rod Laver Arena in pandemonium, he fully regained his composure, stole the momentum, and never looked back, ending the set at 7-5 in his favor and forcing a decider. He took in some air, the smell of victory.
The fifth set kicked off with tense serving as the backdrop of the arena that became combustible with the heated back-and-forth of shots. Rafa became more aggressive. He was reasserting his dominance as he continuously machine-gunned Nole with his “crisper,” borrowing Pat McEnroe’s description, oddly spinning bullets and cannonballs. Already enjoying a 2-game lead and was just 2 games shy from lifting the trophy, he somehow forgot a crucial detail–he was playing against a passive-aggressive and a silent killer, a heavily built bulwark with hidden bombs powered by mental toughness. He was all over the court, chasing the drop shots and deep shots, the cross-courts and down-the-lines, unmindful that his oddly spinning bullets and cannonballs were already being melted by a fully charged two-handed backhand. He lost 4 winners. Still ahead at 4-3, he received a giveaway, a floater in the mid-court, and pounded the ball using the backhand. The ball landed at the exact spot he had not hoped for–outside the court. Rafa never recovered.
On the bench, Rafa was sitting sluggishly, with bullets and cannonballs of sweats still swarming all over his rugged face and bulging muscles. He watched his opponent let go of a roar while ripping shirt, a fitting drama to wrap up the never-before-seen shots and play-making abilities brought to the world by the Australian Open 2012. He finally flaunted his smile shining as bright as his shirt and joined the cheering of the crowd that just witnessed the longest Grand Slam final match in history and what the pundits declared as the greatest match ever.
This is just a part of the story that I wanted to share with you, the story that would bridge what you watched and what you had not. The decade-old images that are still vivid, the rawest moments I captured while I tried to catch the chips sliding off my mouth. The images that have shown the world again and again what masterpiece means – from start to finish, characterized by the dramatic instances we usually tabled in our tennis-first conversations over the cups of coffee and packs of ciggies.
Because what is a tennis conversation without these defining moments? Aside from tennis itself, I realize we had these dramatic instances as our common denominator, even if we were usually divided by the side of the court we chose to support. In one of our conversations, we almost forgot the greatness of Steffi Graf in the 1993 Wimbledon women’s tennis final because we were so engrossed in talking about the choking of Jana Novotna and her meltdown in front of Duchess of Kent, who gave her a shoulder to cry on in the most literal sense. This was the scene that I was waiting for Rafa to replicate, to counter and even upstage Nole’s roaring and ripping, to add more spectacle to the already action-packed game. But he must have been so tired to even shed a single tear. And he is, well, the ever-polite and polished Rafa.
Already, I could hear your string of justifications and analyses, the sound of the pain of losing, of groans of heartbreak upon learning that the love of your life, Rafa, got his ass kicked again by none other than his greatest rival. I could imagine your heavy puffing as if absorbing all the pieces of the incomplete puzzle of why and the quaffing of your dark brew that had never tasted so bitter. I could hear your night-long sighs and laments on the other line as you tried to accept the result of what Rafa has considered as the greatest loss of his career.
Only, there would be no calls or chats from you, no night-long laments, no puffing, and quaffing. It has been ten years, and the images are still vivid.
Happy 10 years in heaven, Ate Cris! I hope you’re able to watch the 2022 Australian Open, with Rafa, in his usual flamboyant fashion, standing upright in Melbourne Park, hoisting the trophy after beating the current world no. 2. But then again, you might have been at the courtside shouting “Vamos, Rafa!”
Images from:
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/best-green-shirts-worn-by-pro-players.680655/