Paula Badosa’s latest experience in Madrid ends – doubles 6-4 in favor of Greek Maria Sakkari, after 1h 29m – similar to last year, one round more than then; However, the background is significantly different. From crying and bitterness to accepting this Labor Day, because everything is part of a process, he says. “Of course I’m annoyed, but I’m learning to deal with it. I’m a very self-destructive person and I’m coming, I’m coming…” he puts it into perspective with a short pause, “quickly down. Little by little I’m trying to see things with more perspective because in tennis you lose every week and if you don’t it would be life without life.”
Badosa expresses himself calmly when he could barely articulate a word a year ago, gripped by emotion and self-reproach. Not now. It hurts, but in its fair measure. It’s gradually getting better, you have to look at the photo from a panoramic perspective, he emphasizes. “I’m fine. It’s a process and I’ve been feeling better for a month; after the bump I had it’s valuable; I’m leaving with good games, the win against Coco [Gauff]… I can’t look back, so all I can think of now is Rome and Paris,” the Catalan continued, clinging to the continuity and green shoots seen in the Caja Mágica these days.
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After a tortuous path fraught with problems that heavily blamed the loss to Simona Halep in Madrid a year ago and started this season wrong with an injury that prevented her from competing in Melbourne, her game is picking up and the language evolving. However, Badosa still needs to climb a few steps to get back to the area he tells reporters he belongs in when his tennis reaches boiling point. It is undoubtedly improving, but progression has not yet accompanied the results. In any case, he trusts that one thing is usually the result of the other and therefore prefers to maintain an emotional neutrality, which can benefit him in the medium term.
Signed in Adelaide earlier this year, the semi-final is his most notable tally this season, in which he has faced big rivals – Rybakina (2 times), Sabalenka, Pegula… – and has yet to finish the flight. The performance sheet reflects that even today he still falls short of the strongest and that the process he speaks of is not yet complete. “I don’t know what grade I’m going with, but I’m sure, with a pass and with positive feelings, with a lot of will and motivation. It could be better, it could be worse… but I’m from where I come from, from below, so there’s a lot to be gained from playing like that,” concludes the Catalan, currently ranked 42nd in the rankings.
As a counterpart, the tag gave Bernabé Zapata a place in the round of 16, who defeated Roman Safiullin (6:3, 3:6 and 6:3) and this Tuesday faces Stefanos Tsitsipas (7:5, 3:6) and 6-3 for Sebastian Baez). The Valencian’s success is a good tribute to the background of this May Day, after all he is a hard worker who has managed, without making any noise, to be among the top 40 players on the circuit. “It’s the price for all these years of playing here, it’s a dream of every child. It’s like going back to the kid who started playing, so I’m very happy,” he says after signing a meritorious win (2h 23m) as a junior against the then-runners-up Russian.
He ends the show (around 10 p.m., Movistar and Tdp) after the passing games by Jaume Munar (Altmaier, 11 a.m.), Davidovich (Coric, 3 p.m.) and Carlos Alcaraz (4 p.m., Zverew).
SHERIF, HISTORY FOR EGYPT
AC | Madrid
His name is Mayar Sherif and he is already the history of Egyptian tennis. At 26 and like Zapata a rookie in a Round of 1000, this Monday (6-4, 0-6 and 6-4 against Elise Mertens) she became the first player of her nationality to make it this far in a tournament of this kind has category. Double merit, because of the difficulties involved in an appointment like that in Madrid and because it wasn’t easy at all.
“No one from my country had even come close to where I am now. He had no support from the federation or sponsors,” he told journalists, to whom he told the origin of his connection with Spain. A decade ago it was put in the hands of Justo González Martínez – from the Ferrero Academy in Villena (Alicante) – and after testing in the United States he settled in Elche.
“He even helped me by taking money out of his pocket,” he says in more than correct Spanish. “I like paella, croquettes, everything… I try to eat well but it’s difficult here,” jokes the 59th in the world, who admires Rafael Nadal and Kim Clijsters and, at the request of this newspaper, defines her tennis as that of one “Warrior”.
She was the real name of a day when the adventure of Russian Mirra Andreeva ended. At just 16, she was stopped 6-3, 6-1 by defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, Sherif’s rival in the round of 16 this Tuesday.
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