Jerry McGuire’s “You already convinced me to say hello” is one of the most famous lines in cinema. Aryna and Paula had already convinced us with the sorry and distressed look of Paula Badosa, still forced to stop due to an injury at 3-3 in the third set in Stuttgart against the closest friend she has on the professional tennis circuit, the WTA Tour.
The the frowning face of the Spaniard – one of the most beautiful in modern tennis – said more than an interview, as did the Belarusian’s movements themselveswith his powerful shoulders that do not combine well with a sweet and delicate soul, and therefore with soft steps, as if he were walking on eggshells, in walking towards his once again wounded opponent who was waiting for him for the fateful final handshake after the unlucky warrior sponge cat.
It would have been a scene that would have been communicated differently by a good PR office, also thinking about how many other challenges – almost all, in truth, at all levels of tennis – end on the court with fleeting greetings, painful touches, with the angry reaction of the loser, peppered with broken words that poorly conceal anger, frustration, disappointment, spite, if not worse, with broken rackets, shouts, insults to oneself, to someone in the stands, to the opponent, the god of rackets. Because tennis is not only the sport invented by the devil, but it brings out your soul and worse, it literally makes you hate those beyond the net, and it only lacks the physical contact to be truly equal to boxing. Even if he leaves his marks, indeed, and forever, in the soul.
