At this point in the film many are wondering why, to what extent, it can make sense for someone who has won virtually everything to continue there, to descend into the mud of everyday life and roll up his sleeves in a small-scale tournament like Bastad's, risking his physical appearance when the new life and resist leaving behind what is so hard to let go of. Perhaps the answer lies in the historical context provided by the opening ceremony of these Games in Paris, the place where it all began. From 2005 to 2024. Closing the circle. There must have been something latent in it, embedded in the soul of Rafael Nadal, that pushed him to the moment when he received the Olympic torch from the hands of Zinedine Zidane, the alopecian genius who played with an imaginary skirt.
Almost twenty years ago, he was the one who first presented the Musketeers Cup to the long-haired boy who was beginning to make his way into history and who received the trophy – the first in a saga of fourteen, a feat that was unattainable to this day – with a knowing smile to this day. However, the story remembers that it was not easy that start between Nadal and the City of Lightthen distrustful of a borderless competitor who eventually took over the city in tennis terms. What the French stand for (always complex, always with their own) and were then perceived as a threat, eventually led to one of the most iconic relationships in sport, because Roland Garros cannot be understood without the stamp of Nadal, in the same way that the Nor the dimension of the character can be imagined without that trace of dirt on the socks. So time, however capricious, brings them back together.
Because perhaps there was no other way.
Maybe it had to happen. Maybe it had to be. You suspect that the boy who walked with his uncle along the Champs-Elysées and ate pizza after every victory, was worth the last effort to leave (and say goodbye sooner or later) across the sand, racket in hand, surrounded by the plethora of athletes and above all in the natural space: Paris. 'The Sun King', the newspaper called him a few years ago The Teamgiven over to a 'Martian' who expresses in all its fullness the meaning of sport. For in this way Nadal 'the alien' managed, ball by ball and mistake by mistake, to put the vast majority of the French in his pocket, until he turned the story around and transformed that rumor of the beginning into the clapping and devotion of today, which has already been adopted like another Parisian.
We don't know how the story will end, when it will say that so far now translated into an endless mystery. Nadal will do it anyway, after a final episode that, it seemed, had to happen. Dictate fate. From time to time, because that's how life works, the stars align. And the majesty of Paris illuminates the scene: he, torch in hand, crossing the waters of the Seine, together with his admired Zidane (mutual respect) and with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Greatness And eternity. Pure history to open these Games.
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