網球 Tennis - 網球

Hi everyone.

Well, what can I say? Tonight is the night before the big day. Tomorrow I am
playing my second final at Roland Garros and I guess we all agree it is some
kind of a special final with Roger. Here I am dictating my blog, which as you
know gets written in English and then gets translated back into Spanish.
Don't ask me why we do it like this!

You might ask, how did I take this day... is it a different day because it is
between a semifinal and final of a Grand Slam? Do I do something special or
different or feel nervous? To tell you the truth what I tried to do all day
is take it as another normal day. That helps me more and maybe it's a way to
forget what is going to happen tomorrow. Or maybe it is a way to have a
normal day. I don't know. Here is a photo of me at breakfast, having bread
with chocolate cream.

The fact is the ATP had arranged for me to do a photo shoot and video filming
at a bridge near my hotel and so I went there, half an hour later than
expected, so I have to apologize to the photographers and TV crews. I did my
work, answered many questions to the many TVs and then went to do another
photograph and then after that I went to the site where I was scheduled to
practice with a Japanese junior who had just played the final of the junior
doubles tournament, so I got my hit with him.

I did see Roger today. He practiced after me. When he was going on court I
was signing autographs so all we did was exchange looks and say 'hello.' I
can also say that I was forwarded a message by Ljubicic. It was nice to
receive it. The message said something like 'Don't get me wrong. I would like
Federer to win because I have a closer friendship with him, but that's it.'

It was really hot out there today. You could really feel the sun and a little
wind. There were a lot of people at the practice court, so maybe next year
they should schedule us to practice on a bigger court :) But jokes aside I
got my hit and again I had some media scheduled. I had to do a press
conference with the international media, although not too many showed up.
Then I rushed to do another live interview with Spanish TV as I said
yesterday in my blog.

Since we were running an hour or hour and a half late, I was scheduled to do
a round table with the Spanish written media, so I did it while I was eating.
Here I am grabbing a dish of pasta today with curry sauce from the restuarant
and an entrecote with fench fries and going upstairs to the player lounge to
sit down with the Spanish fellows. By that time it was already 5.15 and as I
wrote in my post yesterday I wanted to be back at the hotel by 4.30.

Just one more thing to do. I remember I was given a watch in Shanghai last
year and it broke down so I asked my friend from the ATP to walk with me from
the player lounge to the VIP village to pick up another watch. But as we went
out the women's singles final had just finished and there we were trying to
walk through the crowd.

Some of you may ask how we move inside the tournament. To tell you the truth
normally they would have prepared a lot of security but we thought it better
just to go there by ourselves. It is funny, not too many people know that it
is me walking through. You draw more attention to yourself if you are
surrounded by huge security guys pushing people, which I don't like to see,
but I understand that sometimes it is necessary to keep everyone moving. I'm
not afraid to go alone with the guy from the ATP. We try not to push anybody
and just get to the place faster. I picked up the watch and went back to the
hotel.

I got back to the hotel and you can imagine now that it's not just my family
here to support me but a lot of people from Mallorca, including the president
of the Island and a whole bunch of people. The president had prepared dinner
for a lot of people but I prefer to stay at the hotel. One, it would probably
be a mess to go out to dinner with over 30 people and also I wanted to watch
the World Cup match with Argentina. We just called the place that we have
been going for dinner all these days and asked if they could bring stuff to
the hotel. It was me, uncle Toni, uncle Miguel Angel and Tuts from Nike. I
had fried gambas and fried calamari and also a pizza.

So I know some of you ask that if I don't like tomato and I don't like
cheese, what is in the pizza I eat? I don't like sliced tomato but of course
I have tomato sauce on the pizza base. I had a napolitana pizza which had
anchovies and tomato sauce, but I took off the green capers (alcaparras). We
had a laugh after watching the match. My uncle Miguel Angel was telling
stories about famous footballers and coaches and it was really funny. I had a
great time.

As you can see it was a normal day, although probably busier than normal, but
this is the way I like to spend the day - it goes quicker. I can't deny that
I did spend some time today thinking about the final and tomorrow I probably
will be a little nervous. If I win, great, if I don't then there will
probably be another chance. It definitely won't be a tragedy.

On thing I forgot to say in yesterday's post is that I spoke to Raul, the
captain of the Spanish national team. He wished me luck from him and from the
whole team. That was very nice and it was great to talk to him.

Let me tell you that Carlos Moya called me and we spent some time on the
phone and he gave me a lot of supprot for tomorrow. He's a great guy.

Rafa


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