The Last Rebirth of the Panther

Daniela Seguel Carvajal (30 years old) is the number one tennis player in Chile. First in the simple category, the only one that remains in the professionalism of its generation – that of 92 -, the only Chilean woman to reach the quarterfinals of a world-class WTA Grand Slam tournament , equal to those played by Nadal or Federer, but in the women’s category. And yet, this year he was on the verge of leaving tennis for good, when his participation in the Pan American Games in Santiago came to an end.

“I recovered from an edge, and I was at the limit several times,” Daniela begins to say. “Tennis, my greatest passion, the one and most important thing I have done in my life, is a sport that will always take more from you than it gives you, with the exception of a few miracles counted on the fingers.” . Yes, I mean Nadal and Federer.

When I went to watch their last match at the National State Central Court a month ago, I was shocked. It was my first time watching women’s tennis live and I had never seen so much power in a shot. “It’s not really the strength that defines my game, it’s the acceleration I get from my arm to hit the ball,” Daniela tells me with a laugh. “I try to be an aggressive player when I hit with my right, and I make the necessary movements to go with a lot of speed. I could hit him harder if I leaned more on my legs, but I use them to run fast after feeling where each ball my rival hits is going. “These are very difficult milliseconds, which require all my mind, all my concentration,” he says to begin to explain why if the mind is not good, the game will never be good.

These were difficult years for Daniela, a woman who describes herself as absolutely shy and withdrawn off the court, and who even chose to devote herself to tennis rather than football – her other great family passion – because she could not didn’t want to talk any further. at the time, to ask for the ball on the field out of shyness. “I wanted something that was completely mine, that wouldn’t expose me to talking too much to anyone else,” he says, and he says it’s been that way since his childhood, when he would walk past television watching Chino. Rios Games in the late 90s. She was the youngest, the only woman below two brothers who were then 7 and 14 years apart.

In this house in San Joaquín, where she still lives with her mother, Daniela played alone, but freely. I was six years old, I turned off the television at the end of the world number one’s match and went outside to play shadows with a ping-pong paddle. Forehand, left, leg movements, all of this is reflected in the hot cement of the terrace.

Then the movie in his head began to come to life. “I collected shoe boxes from my father’s workshop, dedicated to shoes, and I formed a row with them that divided the patio in two. It was the network. I would put a chair, a bag, a towel, a bottle of water on the side, and I would sit after each point to dry my face, think about my next move, and look at the three liter bottle of CocaCola that was displayed on the table, in the center of the field. “That was the cut.”

This is how it happened every afternoon. Her mother and father looked at her with tenderness but also curiosity: how Daniela was able to perfectly reproduce everything she saw on television. When he finished playing, he sat on the edge to give the press conference. He would voice the commentator, then ask himself the interview questions and finally answer them. All alone.

His seventh birthday came and his father arrived with a pink racket with strings made from fishing poles and three plastic balls that didn’t bounce. But that’s not all: it also came with a registration with the San Miguel Tennis Federation. They left immediately. It was Saturday. “If I liked it, so much the better, and if not, so much the better,” my father told me. When we got to the field, I spent 40 minutes holding his leg, the teachers came to get me and nothing happened, I was afraid to go in. But suddenly I let go and approached the court. It was like I was waiting to confirm that it was a safe place for me. Since that day, I have never stopped playing. Daniela said.

Until last year. “I had a great career, all my life I was supported by my whole family, supported, and even despite the difficulty of managing it financially, there are people who have always believed in my game and in my discipline “, did he declare. said. “I did everything I was told to do to be better, I sacrificed my comfort zone by going on trips without my family since I was 15 years old. to play in tournaments, when at school I avoided going to the birthday of my best friend with whom I spent every afternoon, just so as not to talk to people I didn’t know. And I did it, I grew up and all the sacrifices my family and I made paid off. But a year ago I stopped enjoying it.

What happened was an accumulation of fatigue, a diagnosis of depression and a lot of work facing the uncertainty of tournaments that were not going to bring him financial returns to continue. It became a vicious circle: the mind was worse, but the game was there, there was less money to continue, more anxiety. “I couldn’t enter the field without crying, neither my coaches, nor my technical team, nor a large part of the psychologist were able to help me. Added to this was the fact that financial problems did not allow me to continue doing what I loved most in the world and I had to stop paying my trainer because I no longer had the means to do it. But the fall came from much further.

“Remember what I said earlier: tennis always takes more from you than it gives you?” Daniela said. It was 2016. She was playing the final of a tournament at Club El Alba, playing well, watching her family in the stands as she always did to celebrate points with them. And in one of those looks he saw something different: there was no one sitting, as is usual in tennis. His uncles, cousins ​​and brothers stood around his father, slumped in his seat, eyes wide and heat on his forehead. “I immediately started crying,” Daniela remembers, “and I didn’t play anymore until my brother put my dad in his truck and took him to the clinic. »

“They said it was the heat, so I thought they would take him away to stabilize him and I kept playing,” he recalls. It was in the second set, a square. Suddenly the tournament coordinator entered the field and stopped the game. Daniela took the car to go to the clinic, it seemed that the situation had gotten worse and when she arrived she didn’t even need to ask what had happened.

“You hear about these things happening to other people, to acquaintances, to people on TV, but never to you. My father was everything to me, he was the pillar that pushed me to continue because he believed deeply in my game and in my happiness, and on November 26 he died of an unprecedented cardiac arrest. I watch myself play.

Daniela says her emotional recovery took months. Along with her mother and siblings, they accompanied each other as they always had and she says that despite the pain, they managed to hold her back stronger than ever. But he returned to court after a month and a half. “I was very afraid to return to the place that was my happy place, but it suddenly became the scene of the saddest thing I have ever experienced in my entire life. I decided I wanted to continue playing for him and my family who had tried so hard for me to become a professional tennis player. It didn’t seem right to send everything back,” he explains.

In February, he played his first tournament after the death of his father. He says white butterflies started appearing to him just before playing, and that was the only symbol he saw of him on the field. He won everything. “He did not even appear to me as a ghost, I did not hear his voice and I still cannot dream of him, but this butterfly appeared to me every day, and it is in her that I Saw it. “

“I was happy again and I want to try again until my body gives me the chance. I want to play big tournaments again, to feel alive and fierce again on the field, accompanied and at peace off it.

Later in 2017, he traveled to Europe for three months with his mother to compete in a 60,000m tournament in Spain, and he won it all, too, and on Father’s Day. It was the best tournament of his career. In 2018, he reached 162nd in the world. But then came the injuries, depression and loneliness that, until recently, were on the verge of taking him away from tennis for good.

“I stopped knowing how to manage my emotions. If the mind is not at peace, neither is tennis. My accumulated fatigue, the problems of paying everything you have to pay to play, and above all, my desire to play had disappeared, I didn’t even feel competitive. How was I going to know where to move to respond to bullets if I couldn’t think? He therefore decided in 2022 that the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games would be his last matches.

But something has changed. This year, Daniela says she worked on her emotional and physical side to feel competitive again, and that something inside her told her she wanted to play like she used to again. “It was the love and passion for this game that was the only miracle that allowed me to feel like I wanted more.” When she stepped onto Nacional’s center field in October, she found a group similar to the one she always belonged to in football: “Brave, passionate, enthusiastic, constantly shouting to encourage you.” I have never had so many people supporting me on a field, and it was here in my country,” he says. That day, October 23, 2023, Daniela played three sets in the heat of the capital, and with a courageous bar that only let her scream for a few seconds when she served.

I sat in those stands and wondered if she didn’t lose her concentration because of the crowd’s screams, if she didn’t get nervous every time she heard her name echoed among the people, or if she didn’t was not tired of the fact that even the helicopters had decided to fly over the field every time, for five minutes that day. “It was the kindest thing people have ever given me in my entire life,” he told me later. “It was beautiful to experience it with so much excitement. The match is over, I lost it, and I didn’t want to go cry in the locker room, I wanted to share with the people who wanted to take photos and who were there to remind me that I had given everything, that I was always strong, that I was always competitive.”

This was the last straw that made it possible to change the chip this year, which was already a little better than the previous one in economic terms. She underwent therapy where she was challenged to seek more things outside of tennis, and she started making friends in Barcelona, ​​going to the movies, talking about soccer, and having a significant other. , she supported her unconditionally. this time. “And because I was happy again, I want to try again until my body gives me the chance.” I want to play big tournaments again, to feel alive and fierce again on the field, accompanied and at peace off it. “There’s still Daniela for a while.”