Nadal, Alcaraz and the seed planted by Manolo Santana

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A Manolo Santana would love. He is an unconditional fan of Rafa NadalYes, but how happy he was to see another countryman, a teenager named Carlos Alcaraz, become the youngest number one in the history of tennis.

The seed that Santana sowed in the gray sports of the sixties in Spain continues to flourish. After one generation comes another, and then another, and for the first time in 2022 two Spaniards, Alcaraz and Nadal, will end up in the top two places in the world rankings.

Santana had no time to see this act. The great tennis pioneer passed away on December 11, 2021 in Marbella (Málaga), 83 years after being born into a more humble family in the Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas.

Just seven weeks after his death, a seemingly sunken Rafa Nadal won his second Australian Open against all odds. Manolo already said: “He is the best there is and will be”.

In this twenty-first Grand Slam, the Mallorcan added another in May at Roland Garros, an unprecedented number 22. Y in September Alcaraz won the US Open and, with it, the pinnacle of world tennis.

Before them, before anyone else in Spain, was Santana. He was the first Spaniard to win the Grand Slam, Roland Garros in 1961. He repeated it in Paris in 1964 and also won the United States Open in 1965 and Wimbledon in 1966. Everything today was born from yesterday, in an endless sequence.

On the field named after him, the Caja Mágica’s Manolo Santana court, Carlos Alcaraz began in May what would be a decisive assault on the world number one. There he won the Masters 1,000 in Madrid in a crazy week. He arrived as the ninth ranked player and with consecutive victories over Nikoloz Basilashvili (27 ATP), Cameron Norrie (11), Rafa Nadal (4), Novak Djokovic (1) and Alexander Zverev (3) he rose in sixth and showed his candidacy for the circuit lead. Even Manolo will be left speechless.

This past May was the first time that Santana was not in the Caja Mágica, without his presence at any time in the stands, without his guiding hand. He took charge of the tournament in Madrid in 2002 and led it to become what it is. In 2009 it began to be played in the Box and on that central court named after the father of Spanish tennis. In the same one where Santana was buried two days after her death.

The casket was covered with two flags, that of Spain and that of Real Madrid. Manolo was such a fan of the white club that when he won Wimbledon in 1966 he wore a polo shirt with his team’s crest.

So he would also be excited about a fourteenth European Cup, which Carlo Ancelotti’s team won on May 28 against Liverpool in Paris, after several dramatic qualifying rounds in which he bounced back and forth. When Santana celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018, in the middle of the tournament in Madrid, he received a cake and a Real Madrid shirt as a gift from the organizers. That was what pleased him the most.

The withdrawal of the great Roger Federer, the World Cup in Qatar…manolo misses so many things this year.. But if one moves him, it is his own tribute to Marbella, a town of which he is an adopted and where he has lived for more than three decades.

It coincided with a tie in March for the Davis Cup, another of his favorite tournaments. At the Puente Romano club, there is also a track with his name on it. The public stood up to dedicate a heartfelt memory to the legend, in the presence of a group of tennis legends.

Along with the best Spaniards, all with Manolo, great names from the Santana era attended, such as Italian Nicola Pietrangeli, Romanian Ion Tiriac or Swede Björn Borg. The stars of this century, Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic, also sent video messages. Everyone talked about a sports icon, a teacher. Manolo must have regretted not being able to join him in that meeting. Not to listen to how they praised him, which he did not like – he defined himself as “a little Spaniard on foot” -. But maybe yes to remove the racket and, as he did almost until the end of his days, play some in the sun of Marbella that warmed his last years.

Source: La Verdad

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