08:00am. Sunday, 13th July 2014. World Padel Tour Final (Castellón, Spain)
The alarm clock sounds by 8am but my body claims for more rest. Last week I have competed at the highest level, playing matches involving a huge physical wear like yesterday in semi-finals against Maxi Sánchez and Sanyo Gutiérrez. Inside me, all the alarms turn on, my body needs more time to recuperate. But I can’t do it. A great final is waiting for me and I must convince my body that we still have to fight the final battle, also that the pain I suffer is not that serious and it will stop as soon as I warm up... However, in the deepest part of myself, I know that I’m just telling lies to my body.
On one hand, I suffer muscular pains inherent physical wear of competition which sum up to the chronic pain that grip me after 20 years of career. However, I have no option but preparing by body for what is awaiting us: a 5 sets final against the doubles number 2 of the world, Pablo Lima and Juani Mieres. They are younger than us (Juan Martín and me) and they are looking forward to getting the number 1 from us, for this reason they devote themselves totally to get every point, sparing no effort.
This is what we have. It’s better for me to realize it. I have to leave the regrets for the moment when everything ends and now I can only prepare myself for war.
I get up from bed and, when I put my feet on the floor, I feel as thousands of pieces of glass dug into my feet plants. It is a familiar pain that nearly makes part of me and has been next to me every day of the latest 2 years. I think that, like a faithful friend, he will be next to me forever. Until I don’t walk for a bit and the blood starts circulating, I feel those stabs of pain, these needles that dug into my skin until reaching my muscles and bones. This wakes me up all of the sudden. Later, instinctively, I start bending down my right elbow, which also starts the day stiffen and with pain. Little by little, making smooth movements, my elbow warms up and the pain stops.
This also makes part of elite sportsman life: when you submit your body to a continuous effort for a long time, he takes his searing revenge.
The physical pain that starts as soon as I get up, makes me go back to the past, it invites me to remember. All this lesions nightmares started at the end of 2012, when I had to get operated of the elbow and I thought I would never play padel professionally again. But we’re not getting ahead of ourselves, I will explain this story later. In that occasion, I spent five months without competing and when I came back to court, back in 2013; I started the season with a Plantar fasciitis that followed me all the year.
After the competition in A Coruña (Spain) in June of that season, I had to spend 20 days in absolute rest and being treated. My situation was so serious that I couldn’t even put my right feet on the floor.
The World Padel Tour calendar is to demanding that I had to go back to competition without being completely recovered. If I didn’t compete, I could lose the number 1 of the world and this is something that my pair and I couldn’t permit, because we had fought very hard to be up there for 12 years in a row. I would let a damn lesion stealing our success.
It was a hard season. During my career I had never suffered such lesions so important. Furthermore, playing all the year tortured by pain was affecting me a lot, not only physically but psychologically. I couldn’t train myself as I had expected, with the usual intensity. The worst part was that this hell was with my all day long, including, when I was resting. Inexorably, this lash appeared punctually for his date with my body. And this, little by little, drops you down.
Fasciitis plantar is a pathological condition very difficult to treat. There are different treatments but you never know which suits you better, there are people who never recover themselves of this. This pain becomes chronical that appears and disappears, which is more or less painful, but never stops being a menace. It is like a bomb that you don’t know when it is going to explode, but you know it will because you don’t stop hearing the tic-tac.
The last straw was when in the Master of Madrid semi-finals in December 2013, the last competition of the season, my left foot, which was the healthy one, said “Enough”. I had spent 6 months charging it a lot more than often because of the pain that I suffered on my right foot. During the semi-final, my fascia was broken a 90%. The problem is that I had to play this final with Plantar fasciitis on my right food and fascia broken on my left foot. Where’s the problem, eh?
Even the situation, I could play 4 sets but, unfortunately, I had to give up. Sanyo Gutiérrez and Maxi Rodríguez, who made a great match, fairly won the competition.
Bela:
Recovering me from these two lesions was extremely exhausting. I’m lucky that my holiday started and I didn’t have to compete until few months later. This let me devote myself to rest and treat my physical problems.
But that hell at the end of the season was prolonged for more months. I had two walk using crutches for more than 20 days: I could not put my feet on the ground. Later on I undertook lots of treatments, all of them painful, to recover myself of my illness. And, later, the uncertainty invaded my again and again. How would I feel physically and psychologically to start the following season, 2014, that was closer and closer?
All this brought back the question that was surrounding me for a long time: How much longer I could play with my pair Juan Martín?
We talked about being together, at least 2014 and 2015 but I was not sure of anything. For the last year, I felt that maybe our end as a pair would be very close but, in the deepest part of myself, I didn’t want to assume it.
Playing with my pair, who, for me, is the best padel player in history, was a luck and a reason to be proud of. You only have to look down our figures to see that it was the best decision that I have made in my professional life.
However, the effort we made match after match has charged the bill and my battered body notices it. Being Juan’s pair makes you feel that you have to cover a lot of space on the court; you exploit your body at the highest lever. And this effort, year after year, has consequences. I had spent two horrible seasons, dragging on lesions in my elbow and both feet. And during all that time I couldn’t stop thinking if it was a good idea to keep playing together. There was no doubt that there were benefits in terms of sports and image. On the other hand, I had the possibility to look for other pair that didn’t require so much physical effort and that maybe let me extend my career. This is, if lesions persist like the two last seasons, I didn’t know how much longer could by body keep going playing at the highest leer. But I was sure that no much longer.
Be that as it may, all these thoughts were hidden in the last space of my mind, day after day, month after month. Maybe, I couldn’t take the plunge. I didn’t feel ready to make the most important decision of my career, when the results were so good. In 12 years, we retained the title of number 1 of the world. So, for which reason shall we separate ourselves? I forgot about such ideas and I focused on recovering for 2014 season, I would keep playing with Juan.
I hear whistles, all of the sound. It is my mobile phone. I check it. A notification: tomorrow, I must call a friend to wish him a Happy Birthday. My head comes back, to the present, to this place, to this room in Castellón where I expect the pain of my feet to stop and the tightness of my elbow, in order to dress up, go down for breakfast and start my concentration stage.
In a few hours, I’ll be playing a final. I can’t think of anything else but competing at the highest level, in focusing myself in each point of the match.
The three of us go down for breakfast: Juan, Miguel Sciorilli (our trainer) and me. Usually, during competitions, Juan and I don’t sit together first thing in the morning. This is surprising, people can think that we don’t get on well, but nothing could be further from the truth: we do this so each one can do whatever he feels like, beyond of our combination on the court.
After 13 years playing together, we look like married, joined by respect and love. However, we also need our space, like everybody else. We don’t do anything forced. If we feel like sitting together, we sit together; if not, we don’t, each one sits in a different place, without consequences.
However, in this occasion, as we are before a final and we few colleagues are still here (most of them leave when they are eliminated from competition), we sit together the three of us.
We eat as always: lots of carbohydrates to bear the whole match, some proteins and, most of all, we drink lots of liquid.
After breakfast, we go back to the room and pack the bag for the final. I also leave my suitcase ready; I am one of those who, after the match, gets the first train or plane to go back to Barcelona. After a week competing far from home, I only want to see my wife and kids.
We leave the hotel room, we check out and the official car of the competition is waiting for us in the door, which is taking as to the match place.
After just 10 minutes, we are in Ciudad de Castellón sports pavilion. Even though we get in from a different door as the spectators, there are people already waiting in the parking of the building. They are waiting to take pictures with us, request autographs... I love direct contact with people. I will always feel extremely thankful for such love and strength given, all the support they have given my during my career.
Minutes later, we are inside the sports premises and we go directly to the dressing room. Once there, I get my paddles ready: I always carry 3 with me and once they are ready, I don’t let anybody touch them: under no circumstances. It’s an obsession that I have acquired during the years, maybe someone considers this a superstition.
I get dressed and I start to warm up. Later, I put on my ankle supports. I always start putting the left one, this is another rule during my ritual before a match. Once ready, I try my best to get isolated to concentrate myself. I try to foresee moments that could take place during the match, something I can intervene in. I need to hold control of the point and this only happens when you are in touch with the ball. So I foresee the situation and I try to stay focused during the whole match: I must get into the game as longest as possible.
Now I’m ready. Las year’s annoying routines are left behind, when I had to visit my physio before and after each match.
Even though I still feel some pain, which I think that I will be never left behind, my feet pain after 5 months of treatments and rehabilitation has remitted a lot. In 2014 I have played better than the previous year, when I suffered a true nightmare. We have started the season in an unbelievable way: we won in Barcelona, Badajoz and Córdoba. Now in Castellón we are facing our fourth final in a row.
However, even though the results are great, the voice inside my head that I cannot silence, keeps asking me, once and again, how longer shall I play as a pair with Juan.
The moment has arrived, our career has taken us until a new final. Every time I read our statistics in the news, I feel astonished of what we have made. I know excellent players who didn’t have the chance to even play a final and this makes me appreciate a lot having played so many finals. However, I feel very proud of not having, neither my pair nor me, cannot relax the vigilance at any moment. We still give the best out of ourselves as if every match was the most important one of our career.
We are in the dressing room walkway, waiting for the music to start playing. The great speaker, and friend, Óscar Solé, will announce our names at any moment and we will get out to the court.
The Show starts.
You can’t imagine what it feels like when you hear your name through the pavilion speakers, you get out through the dressing room getaway and you greet the audience; music is very loud and all the audience sing together your name. It’s an incredible adrenaline injection. If you are not physically and psychologically at your best in that moment, during those seconds, your heart will beat stronger; all lights turn on and you know the battle is about to start. From that moment, friends no longer exist. The comradeship that exists outside the court between the professional players that participate in the competition no longer exists. Only a pair can win. There’s no friendship on the court. I’m going to give the last part of myself to win again
Against us, we face Pablo Lima and Juani Mieres, the doubles number 2 of the world. Is the 4th final in a row that we play against them and we have won the three previous matches making a lot of effort. If we want to win them this time it will not be different, they won’t make it easy. We will play at our best from the first minute, without excuses.
The first set starts. When we play against pairs like this, we are facing two players out of this world. However, this time, the player that is the backhand, Juani Mieres, was not born a player; when I mean that he is not a hitter, I hope nobody understands me badly: if you leave him a high ball, he will hit it outside the pavilion. What I’m saying is that he is not a hitter like Miguel Lamperti or Paquito Navarro, whose first option is always trying to get the ball out of the court. Juani is very patient and he will only hit it if he considers it is feasible. This makes him more dangerous. He only puts himself in risk in very few occasions and he fails very little. It’s a matter of fact that they are the doubles number 2 of the world.
When we face such a tandem, we usually play a strategy consisting on Juan shooting a love shot to the backhand player and he runs right to the net. This way, we make that the player who has received the love shot, in this occasion is Juani Mieres, changes his smash to me. This way, I start the game from the end of the court while by pair is already next to the net, prepared to attack.
During the first set, we impose a high level. This is one of our characteristics: trying to show our speed from the very beginning. We won the set: 6-2. Even this, I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I feel that something is not going well.
The second set starts and they start knuckling us down until they make us naturally fail. They win us 6-3. We are not playing well, this is obvious, we have made strange fails and that burns me inside. If I lose is because my rivals have played better than me, I take my hat off to them, I congratulate them and the following day I start training again to improve so this doesn’t happen again: However, if we lose is because we are not giving out the best of ourselves, because we can’t follow the bat or because we are not concentrated; as it happens in this final, I turn on and I can’t forgive myself. I’m relentless at this.
The worst part is that we are reproaching each other the mistakes and, by this, we are losing our concentration on the match. This, when you are playing a final against the doubles number 2 of the world, you pay it. it’s not strange, then, that we lose the third set: 6-3.
I can’t understand what is going us, we don’t look each other at the face. We feel tension at every point, at each natural mistake, during the match break, we sit in our sits without talking, without looking at each other, waiting for the time to pass by and go back to the court.
The fourth set starts. The situation has to change a lot or the match will end up like this. We have left behind the warm and supportive word that we always exchange before getting to the court. now, on the contrary, recriminations are harder and harder. I’m telling stupid things to my par, “Why you haven’t learn to return in 13 years?” I know Juan can just fail one or two returns per match, it is like this since we started playing more than 10 years ago. I, myself, also make a lot of mistakes. However, today I can say this stupid thing right in front of his face, during the match, to, for me, the best player in padel history, my pair for a long time, the sportsman with whom I have been the Number 1 for years.
Warnings turn on, they go crazy. It couldn’t be otherwise: we lose the fourth set. Again, 6-3. Pablo and Juani win the Castellón competition.
Logically, after the match and the awards, everything is solved. As far as I remember, I never get angry at Juan outside the court since I met him. So, when my beats recover the common rhythm, everything is solved.
However, in the train back to Barcelona, the voice inside my head is impossible to silence. I must announce to my team that I will no longer play with Juan.
After spending a year and a half thinking all day about this, after the morning events in the competition final, I finally understand that my subconscious has taken a decision: give up. I really didn’t want to realize this. Because it’s a hard, and necessary, decision.
I hope you understand how difficult it is to make a decision like this. It’s not only about emotional, loving feelings but about sport. On the other hand, the uncertainty of knowing with whom I would play next year appears. Even though I’m perfectly sure that I will finish 2014 season with Juan, what will happen next? Shall I find a competitive partner to fight for the number 1?
Instead of facing all these questions, the practical side of my mind repeats once and again: “Bela, don’t separate”. But in life there are more important things. I come from a humble family, who taught me to be happy with very little. I can’t bear that our friendship or the picture we cast are damaged if we extend artificially this situation, or if we force a lot being together.
So, whatever tells me my practice inner, instead of listening to everyone who I would ask about this, I undertake the most difficult decision of my life. I had spent the last 2 years thinking about it and there was no way back: it was irrevocable.
I have no doubts: 2014 would be the last year I played with Juan Martín Díaz.
The hardest part: telling him about this.
The following day I wake up and, once again, my feet and arm say Good morning! I call our trainer, Miguel Sciorilli and our sports psychologist, Oscar Lorenzo, to share my news with them. I’m sure about what I’m telling Juan but I don’t know when or how, that’s way I need Miguel and Oscar support to act in an appropriate way. Indeed, I know they will tell me what to do. We are in the middle of the season. We can’t do anything that may destroy this year. We have started fairly well, in terms of sports, and it would be like a dream ending the year at our best, as the couple number 1 of the world 13 times in a row. But this is secondary, I have a priority.
After a long talk, they understand that my decision is firm. They advise me, the best moment to tell Juan is when we are not competing, if possible, in the morning, during breakfast: that’s when Juan is more receptive and relaxed. I think about going to Madrid to talk with him. However, as it happens, next competitions will take place in Málaga and Marbella. Between the two cities, we will spend far from home 2 whole weeks, so I decide that the best moment would be when the Malaga competition ends, right before the Marbella one.
Saturday 26th July, Malaga competition
We lose the semi-final against Maxi Sánchez and Sanyo Gutiérrez: 7-6, 6-7, 6-3. So, on Sunday we don’t have to compete and we can take a rest. Miguel, our trainer, doesn’t stop egging on me: according to him, I am tense because I’m afraid of explaining Juan the situation, but I should talk to him as soon as possible.
Maybe he is right.
Monday 28th July
Every time we go to Málaga to compete, a close friend of us, Air Europa Airlines, Ronie Toledano, invites us home for a barbecue: we meet everybody, including Juan family (his parents, his wife, his brother in law). In total, we are nearly 30 people. It’s incredible, we always have a great time in Ronie’s. But this year, something has changed: I am tense and knowing that we are about to split prevents me from relaxing. I have decided to take advantage of the night to ask Juan to go for breakfast on the following day, because I have some news to share.
Miguel, who knows perfectly what I am about to say, can’t take his eyes off me. I think that my face reflects an open book where the word “tension” is written. He realizes the bad time I am having. It feels unreal, as if I had to split with my long term girlfriend. “We need to talk. This is not going well. What about if we meet tomorrow?”
During dinner, I am looking at everything: the laughs, the jokes, the warm gestures... I don’t know if the following year it would be like this. Shall we keep celebrating this barbecue at Tonie’s, even though Juan and I are no longer together? I don’t know, I can’t imagine but I wish we can celebrate this meeting for a long time. Undoubtedly, all the sacrifices that I have made during my career make sense in moments like this. Honestly, it would be very hard losing all this for a decision taken by me. The more I think about this, more tension I feel, if any.
I stare at my partner for a second. He is laughing at Ronie’s jokes. His daughter is sitting on his knees, who is touching his face with her little fingers calling for attention. She is a nice girl. By looking at the, I miss my three kids and my wife. I wish they were here with me! Unconsciously, I pick my phone and look at the screen’s background: a family portrait, the 5 of us. When you spend so much time far from home, a picture, a call or a text can take you back to life.
Dinner goes by, among laughs, jokes, anecdotes... time for truth is coming soon.
After dessert, coffee and Argentinian mates and a long chat, dinner is over. We start saying goodbye to each other. Tomorrow we must train and we can’t miss time sleep if we want to be in perfect conditions.
All of the sudden, Juan leaves the group.
I think he is getting some bags I brought and I think “That’s mine!”
I go for him, determined. I hope nobody interrupts us. “Juan, would you mind if we meet tomorrow for breakfast? I need to talk with you”.
He doesn’t answer but looks at me with incredulity. I think that I had never asked for a talk in 12 years and a half. He looks surprised but he finally agrees, he says OK.
It’s done. I take a deep breath. I have given the first step. Why all this is so hard? Because it should be. I will tell him that I’m leaving the person whom with I have shared lots of moments, good and bad ones. When we started competing together, we were single. Now, both of us are married and we have 3 kids, kids who are growing up together. I’m leaving my partner whom I have been Number 1 for many years. Together, we were the couple everybody wanted to beat. With him, I have shared a third of my life. No, it’s not difficult. It’s very difficult.
I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking of what I’m telling Juan the following day. I have even rehearsed the dialogue in my head. It’s incredible, I’m very determined for lots of things and this is very hard for me. However, at the end I fall sleep.
I wake up, I say Good morning to my feet and arm, and I get dressed and go to Reserva del Higuerón restaurant. I’m meeting him there for the talk. Next, we will train together.
I get to the restaurant. Even though Miguel is coming with us, he sits in a separate table. He tells us to take our time to talk about our things, there’s no hurry. That relaxes me. I prefer my partner and I being alone at this moment, even though our trainer and friend, who has always being more than a physical trainer, join us afterwards and gives us his opinion.
I sit on a chair. Juan, still not knowing what’s going on, sits on his. Miguel is the tables on the right, staring at his phone. So, here we are, alone, him and me, face to face.
Truth is easier to see when you are closer. Time has passed for both of us. We are no longer those 25 and 22 year old youngsters who met in a restaurant in Madrid for a talk thirteen years ago to decide if we should play padel together. Simple twist of fate! History repeats. We meet again to decide about our future. But if in that moment it was for sharing it, this time was for splitting.
How many points, won and lost, have we undertaken since the first competition? How many laughs and sadness we have shared in the last 13 years? I’m breaking down. I don’t know if I will be able to tell him but there’s no way back. We are staring at each other and the moment of truth is here. Shall I be able to talk?
Silence is eternal and surround everything around us. At least, I can’t hear anything but juan and me. Are the waiters gone? You could cut the air with a knife. I clear my throat. I need a glass of water but there’s nobody around to ask for it. My heart beats, my heart beats inside my body like a drum who is calling for truth, sincerity shared without clothes. Time to break the ice. I look on both sides and when I’m about to talk, to say the first word, I don’t know how but everything stops. It feels like time has stopped. My mind goes back to the past, long time ago. I go back to my childhood, as in a film, I start seeing how everything started and to remember all the decisions that I had to take to get here, to this place.
All of the sudden, I am in Argentina, in my small village, Pehuajó, where everything started 35 years ago.
Bela:
It’s hard to start for what I miss the most...
My father doesn’t say anything at all when you do something well. However, he is the first one to blame myself when I’m not acting responsible if something goes wrong and I don’t get the expected success.
If I won a match, he would never tell me how good I have played, he has never praised me without justification. However, if I have lost or if he considers that I have not fulfilled my obligations as a sportsman or during my training sessions, he has reproached it to me, by saying: “Be a man, go an talk to your partner and tell him that you have not been the professional player he deserves”.