What days, what weeks Jarry, Garín and Tabilo gave us in Santiago and Indian Wells. In different parts of the planet tennis conversations are heating up and the press and social networks are celebrating the return of Chilean rackets to the main tournaments .
Congratulations!
As time doesn’t allow me time to watch all the games, I discover via Twitter and Instagram the best shots and plays I’ve missed and out of the corner of my eye I review some of the stats shared by those in the know or the most informed.
Via WhatsApp, veteran marathon runner Gonzalo Zapata, who just arrived from Tokyo after completing his second Six Major, asks me How many times does a tennis player hit a ball in a Grand Slam?
Gonzalo is passionate about tennis and even though I tell him that I wouldn’t even know where to begin to answer his question, I take Roger Federer’s biography and tell him that in the 2019 Wimbledon final Roger Federer won 218 points and still lost the final against Novak Djokovic, who in this match won 204 points .
On the phone, I told Gonzalo that in that July 14 final, Roger Federer, 37 years and 340 days, fell 6-7, 6-1, 6-7, 6-4, 8-7, 40 -15 and missed the opportunity to “to be crowned the oldest professional Grand Slam champion of the century.”
And it’s only tennis, as I would say Rene Stauffer Swiss racketeering biographer, “It’s rarely a game of logic. Seemingly decisive advantages can vanish in moments. This sport can be very difficult. Sometimes even unfair.”
This paragraph brings me back to the good weeks of the Chilean rackets, but Gonzalo insists on numbers and calculates that a tennis player, in a long match, must hit the ball between 700 and 2000 times. Why does this number interest a marathon runner? Because Gonzalo calculates the number of decisions made by a tennis professional in a match to compare it to the number of steps taken in a marathon.
Between two laughs, I tell Gonzalo that only an engineer who runs marathons can have these worries and we change the subject, but the truth is that sportswriters and many fans share this same passion. Passion that brings me back to Life and career of Luis Ayala, subtitle of the fascinating book by Juan Carlos Cappello, In five sets , where the numbers don’t do justice to a great among the greats of world tennis.
And it is that Luis Ayala -I quote Cappello- “He is the Chilean with the longest tenure in competition at the first international level in the history of his sport. He is the only Chilean to have successfully competed in all eras of modern tennis. the one reserved for amateurs, the one reserved for professionals and the current “open era”, which began in 1968″.
In 1956 Ayala won Roland Garros in mixed doubles and between 1958 and 1969 he had a solid presence at the highest level of the competition. “He was champion, runner-up and semi-finalist and was in the top eight seeds at the other three Grand Slams, Wimbledon, Roland Garros and the US Open.
He was nine times champion of Chile in singles, South American and Pan American champion and participated in 18 editions of the Davis Cup . Champion in Italy, of what would today be a Masters 1000, he obtained a total of 45 championship titles, was awarded as a South American athlete in 1957 by the defunct Helms Foundation and “Before entering professionalism, which happened in 1961, Luis Ayala regularly ranked among the top ten players in the world. His highest position in these lists was a fifth place.
But as Rene Stauffer says in Roger Federer’s biography, not only does tennis not respect logic, but it can be harsh and unfair and in Ayala’s heyday, as Cappello recalls, there was no weekly sports rankings or scores depending on the importance of the tournament. , so everything was more subjective. Thus, the positions of tennis players depended more on the opinions of specialized journalists and magazine executives. WorldTennis.
Luis Ayala’s version -contained in Cappello’s book- about these figures is as follows:
“The world tennis ranking in 1959 was a cumulative result. Frankly, and even for a short time, it hurts me that they never recognized me in Chile as world number one. In 1959, after beating Nicola Pietrangeli, Roy Emerson and Neale Fraser to win the tournament in Italy, I was the first seed at Roland Garros, the most important championship at the time. In other words; this selection meant that, at least at the time, I was considered world number one. No one remembers him in my country.
Whether in tennis, running or other sports, times, numbers, standings and statistics motivate or demotivate athletes and that is why we must learn to manage them, because their own expectations and those of others can, literally take you out of the game. One day you are up and the numbers are with you. Then you’re down and the numbers destroy you. And suddenly you appear lifting the Cup in Santiago, climbing positions with great strides and everyone is amazed.
This is the case of Nicolás Jarry and although Garín and Tabilo could not continue to advance this week in Indian Wells, these weeks the numbers have smiled on them. Both have experienced a significant rise in the ATP rankings and considerable economic gains, since this Masters 1000 is the one that brings in the most money.
Yes, numbers reinforce good performances and leave records for history, but as Luis Ayala reminds us in Cappello’s book, The happiest day of his life did not coincide with any title or ranking, but with the day he married María Tort.
“It was the best thing that could have happened to me. More than sixty years have passed. Without her, nothing (…) I have no doubt about it; The day we got married was the happiest of all. my life.”
To be continued…
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Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
