As if no time had passed, how playful fate is, the RCTB parish evokes the past with encouragement.
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–Come on, Rafa! –is shouted in Pedralbes while below, on the clay of the Rafa Nadal court, this other Rafa, the new one, Rafa Jódar, is playing, who has come to stay and unleashes powerful forehands and has won over the crowd in these days of orphanhood, without the retired Nadal and without the injured Alcaraz.
Little by little, the boxes and stands are filling up.
Tennis lovers leave their after-dinner conversations in the Hospitality area, leave their napkins on the tablecloth and finally appear, surrendering to this new icon, this new Rafa, perhaps unexpected, certainly dazzling, who has burst onto the circuit.
The title in Marrakech, two weeks ago, and now this series of exhibitions at the Godó Trophy have excited the tennis connoisseurs, who are already speculating and prophesying:
–In a very short time, we will see Jódar in the Top 10.
Perhaps.
But for now, we have to wait.
For now, Jódar is 42nd, a few steps behind the Russian Andrey Rublev, the Russian who will seek the Godó Trophy title this Sunday, and the magnificent Arthur Fils, yesterday the executioner of the Madrid native, who is 29th and rising.
What a lower body Fils has, a 21-year-old prodigy who embodies a good part of the expectations of French tennis, as orphaned as it has been since the days of Yannick Noah, back in the eighties of the last century.
This new generation is making its mark; we already have Alcaraz, Sinner, and Rune consolidated, a bit older, and behind them appear Fils himself, or Jódar or Landaluce, or Fonseca, Tien, and Mensik; new names are entering the ranking.
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Arthur Fils shows off his six-pack when he lifts his shirt to wipe away sweat, and he sports marble legs, and the chronicler imagines him lifting hundreds of kilos in squats, and with his columns he moves on the court like a cat would; this is Fils, who occasionally glances towards his box, where Goran Ivanisevic, his orchestra conductor, watches him, in search of answers.
Well, for a good while, Jódar has him on the ropes.
In 43 minutes, Jódar takes the first set. He does it with strokes of patience and perseverance. Jódar drops back, to the baseline, and from there he needles the Frenchman: he has him like a fan, from one side to the other, and the Gallic Hercules, running.
Fils reaches many balls, almost all of them; he plays a tennis of few nuances, very physical and based on rallies, with few net approaches and few drop shots; this is the new tennis beyond Alcaraz and Sinner.
Jódar is persistent and doesn’t back down. He’s a pile driver, he seems like a 19-year-old veteran with thousands of flight hours, and at 37 minutes he breaks the Frenchman’s serve for the first time and at 43 minutes he takes the first set.
And then?
Fils doesn’t back down either. He sticks to his game. Baseline, forehand against the Madrid giant’s backhand, he keeps Jódar away from the net, the points lengthen and sometimes, the Frenchman hypes up the court:
–Come on! –he shouts when he wins a point, he shouts as if he were Spanish.
Fils perseveres and settles in, and stroke by stroke he wears down Jódar, who is increasingly pressured on serve, almost giving up when he loses the second set and disoriented in the last. All this has come too soon for him, or so one must believe.
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For now, Fils and Rublev rule at the RCTB.
(The final between them is played this Sunday, at 4 PM).
