In 2025 it is disputed The first Roland Garros since Nadal left tennisbut the Balear will step on the track again Philippe Chatrierthat which knows the millimeter and in which he only lost four times in his 19 participations in the tournament (and one withdrawal before playing the third round) plus another in the games. Only three tennis players managed to overcome it, never in a final. Soderling in 2009, in eighths; Zverev in 2024, in the first round; and Djokovic three times, 2015, in rooms; 2021, in semifinals; and 2024 in the Olympic appointment, the best of three sets. If you had to write the name of all the tennis players who defeated the left -handed, the space of this article would end. They deserve to be cited because they explain very well what the 14 Mosqueteros Cups that Nadal raised, one of the most amazing exploits in the history of sport.
Roland Garros tributes Nadal
Rafa did not want a tribute last year because in his mind there was still the possibility of returning to Roland Garros dressed as a tennis player this season. It could not be, so the time has come for the recognitions on a day in which Amelie Mauresm, the director of Grand Slam Parisinohe only said that there will be “surprises.” The party in honor of Nadal will be today, at the start of the tournament, when the three games of the day shift end. The Spanish He has already participated this year by putting the voice to the presentation ads And it will always remain immortalized in the sculpture at the gates of the central track, in which there is normally tail to take a photo.
Nadal is also linked to France by the Raquetas brand that accompanied him throughout his career: Babolat. “For a player, the racket is the extension of his body, it is the arm with 68 centimeters and a half more,” he says Lucien Noguès, firm of the firm Gala since the 80sthat helps to deepen a little in the figure of Nadal and even the tennis of the last decades. «Nadal’s racket and those of the rest of Babolat players are the ones that come from the stock, everything is removed, they swing and those that are closest to what the player wants, they are kept for him and they are made to measure. Play with rackets that we do in detail, when you put the cap, you verify that everything is as the tennis player has asked for, but Nadal once discovered a difference of a millimeter in the length of the racket. Testing said: “This is not the same.” The rackets are made to the gram, the millimeter for athletes, but we are human and we can make a small mistake. When we returned it, we saw that he was right. His hand is touched by God or, I don’t know, by the devil, and the sensations he has are so high that they can reach that extreme, ”says Noguès, a man who has been part of the world of tennis the last 44 years, and who intermingles Rafa’s stories with those of other tennis players with whom he agreed.
After doing the mili, he started working on sports issues, and reached tennis. He went to an interview with the grandfather of Eric Babolat (the current CEO of a family business that goes for the fifth generation) through a friend. «He made me rush two rackets and how I spoke in English, German and then told him that I spoke Spanish and Italian, I convinced them. I started working on September 15, 1981, ”he recalls. In his long career even Becker’s personal bug In a Wimbledon, in a few years in which the brand was famous for its cordages (the jump to the rackets gave it in 1994). It can even be said that they gave the departure pistol to tennis in 1875. Two years after those first ropes with ropes, Wimbledon was played for the first time. «Boris asks me and Babolat if he could have a hook just for him. They gave me permission and I did, ”he says. «I was with Ion Tiriac, who worked with him, in a house in London. They made family life, ate together, and I did the rackets. I was focused at night in the tournament, ”he recalls.
Nadal: 1,250 rackets, 300 kilometers of lamb
Nadal did 1,250 rackets throughout your career. “And he never broke one,” continues Lucien, who turns to Jimmy Connors To explain how maniacas that players can be with their work tool. «The Wilson metal Connors racket for me was impossible, it was a disaster to rush it, the rope broke, but as it said before, for him it is like an extension of his hand. “Don’t break this racket, it’s my favorite,” he said. “But he’s’ dead,” he replied. “No, no, no, please do not break it,” he insisted. If Nadal realized a millimeter that a racket was not usual, Becker discovered it for a difference of three grams, without a balance, playing, ”he continues.
Babolat ended up making an exclusive racket model for Nadal. The Balearic player was also particular with the Cordaje, from which he came to use 300 kilometerswell It has 1.35 millimeters thick, when the usual is 1.30. «He played with a huge topspin and the one that gives that effect is the movement of the vertical strings. To prevent the racket from breaking every five minutesused 1.35. He didn’t wear gut strings because they were very fast for him. They are polyester and the duration of polyester tension is catastrophic from there that changed rackets every time there were new balls, ”explains Lucien Noguès. Babolat ended up making a type of rope at Nadal’s request in search of that greater effect, and found the solution cutting them in the place of round, in an octagonal way, which can be seen with a microscope.