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Sports Arena
Class
Spaniards on the court, Spanish whispers in the stands, tennis the way it should be played.
PARIS — Rafael was down 1-5 in the third set and it occurred to me he was feeling the effects of the marathon against John Isner in the first match of his campaign for a sixth championship in the Internationaux de France, the French Open tennis tournament which is held at the Roland-Garros site on Paris’s west side. A young compatriot, Pablo Andujar, who is from Valencia, was playing a brilliant tactical game after losing the first two sets. There was something almost Roger Federer-like in the precision of his sliced drops and his high-velocity passes. Nadal was not chasing them down, either, which gave rise to my notion that Mr. Pleszczynski was right when he wired me — okay, e-mailed — to watch for just this angle.
To be strictly accurate, Pablo Andujar is a few months older than Nadal, who is going on 25, but he is slighter — at six-one Rafa is no John Isner, but he is no 98-pound weakling, either — if muscular and more handsome if you like the Adonis type. Nadal is your man if you like the Bogart off-handsome handsome type, particularly with fierce piercing fanatical eyes.
At 1-5 in the third set, his eyes were blazing. Sitting just behind the service line in the packed Suzanne Lenglen stadium, a gem where even from the stands you feel close to the court because you are, I thought, he is either going to concede the set and fight like hell in the fourth, or he is going to start fighting now.
Then it hit me: If your game plan is to fight like hell, why wait for a new set? If one way or another you mean to win the next six games, you might as well begin right away. That was also when I noticed his eyes. You could see them when he turned from the baseline to grab his towel and ask for balls. The player serving is always picking among the balls available from the ball-boys (or girls), finding the least-used ones. A fresh supply is used after about a set (9 games).
Creo, I whispered to the person next to me, es el fin para Pablo… I meant it looks like curtains for Pablo, but I could not remember the Spanish word for curtains. (I know, cortinas, but it’s too late and anyway they do not use this expression.)
The reason I whispered is that the etiquette on these courts is strict: during play, you shut up. Conversations flare up during changes of sides, and there is total silence the rest of the time. Etiquette had been breached repeatedly, however, because the crowd was overwhelmingly Iberian for this Spanish drama, without partisanship. They were howling encouragement to both, going gaga over great shots and long rallies.
The only other reason I whispered is that due to certain events that have taken place in New York but which have got the French obsessed with s-x and proper behavior between m-n and w-m-n, I have totally frozen my habitually chivalresque style, to the point I dasn’t even offer a lady my seat on the subway — always crowded on the way back from the stadium — and resist the temptation to stop in the corner bar in the neighborhood because it is always full of young things in tight sweaters or half open shirts over jeans that I cannot figure out how they got into them.
But this person took the seat immediately adjacent to mine before the match began and said Hi. Actually: “Hola” — this tipped me off that it was a Spanish person. Garrulous, at every break she was yakkety yakking about this and that and what fun to be in Paris and where am I from and am I a tennis pro. In normal times I would have known how to rise to the occasion, but I froze.
However, I steered the conversation toward sober topics, history, Francisco Franco, the dark years of dictatorship. Make her think I am totally out of it — most Spaniards probably do not even know there was a dictatorship. Mistake: the granddaughter of Basque Republicans, she knew that stuff by heart, grew up with all the passionate memories.
“Terrible tragedy,” I muttered between sets. “Well, in the new Spain, it’s great, you have young men like Pablo and Rafa, competing in this friendly — and lucrative — way. And in Viscaya you can speak Basque.” (Which was forbidden under Franco.)
“New Spain, pff,” she said heatedly. “We could use some order.”
Lately there have been massive demonstrations in downtown squares in many Spanish cities. Supposedly inspired by the Arab spring, the demonstrators demand “dignity” — and jobs. Unemployment among under-30s, I gather, is over 30 percent. Something is not right in sunny Spain. The German government dreads it may go the way of Greece. Spain’s Socialist government, trying to introduce austerity programs, lost local elections last week, and it seems unlikely they can turn the situation around in time to prevent the Partito Popular, the conservatives, from winning the national elections next year.
None of this has anything to do with tennis, of course. However, she was a keen observer, for someone, as she told me, who never played the game. When Andujar surged ahead in the third set, she correctly noticed the effectiveness of his slices and drops, the precision of his cross-court forehands, the dexterity of his movements.
“The caudillo,” she whispered, “was a dictator.
But he was a Spanish caudillo, not a fascist or a
Nazi.”
I was astonished. This from a Basque?
“And he protected Jews.”
About the Author
Roger Kaplan, a Washington-based writer, covers the Middle East and Africa (and tennis) for The American Spectator.
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Laurey Boyd| 5.27.11 @ 10:26AM
I've always thought Nadal had class, even when he climbed the awning to hug his parents, the king of Spain and Federer's parents when he won against Federer a few years back.
PCC| 5.27.11 @ 11:44AM
Despite his fierce determination to win every point, Nadal has shown himself to be a gentleman on the court, and a generous and gracious opponent afterwards, win or lose.
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.27.11 @ 11:48AM
Tennis anyone?
How about croquet?
How about mumbly peg?
Badmitten?
David T| 5.27.11 @ 12:07PM
I want to know more about the Spanish lovely in the adjacent seat...
Occam's Tool| 5.27.11 @ 12:57PM
Yeah, what about the Conservative babe with the Beauty and Brains?!
vatvince'37| 5.27.11 @ 1:27PM
In a tangential way, Mr. Kaplan's recounting of the Nadal win reminds me "that the victors write history." I served at the US Embassy in Madrid for four years (1978-82), and in my many travels around the country, I learned a lot about Spain, and as much about Francisco Franco Bahamonde. To this day, Franco's reign is filled with the predictable charges by liberal commentators about a man whom them hate so much as to distort anything he did. For example, how many know that, after deciding who would win WWII, he prevented the shipment of valuable minerals to Germany, which hampered their ability to fight on, or during the Cold War allowed the US to use two airbases - although they still remained under the Spanish rule of Spain? As a Jew, Kaplan should know that Franco, whose Spanish roots included the recognition that Sephardim were an integral part of Spanish history, protected them - literally - from Nazi demands that they be transported to Germany and certain death. This, and much more, is included in Leonard Mosely's informative bio of Franco. Franco's undying antipathy was to the Basques, whom he considered, as a group, betrayers of the Spanish national state - and with good reason. For them, he showed little mercy, and their terrorist acts were met with the penalty of death by garrotting, something Spaniards thought no worse than hanging. So, if "Rafa" wins, it behooves Mr. Kaplan and readers to investigate the life of the man the Spaniards called, El caudillo."
Pax vobsicum.
Paul Windels| 5.28.11 @ 10:16AM
It is also worth noting that had Franco cooperated, the Germans could easily have closed the Straits of Gibraltar, cutting off the Mediterranean from the British and forcing all traffic to the far east around the Cape of Good Hope. Such a disaster might even have driven the British out of the war, a terrible thought indeed.
JmsA| 5.28.11 @ 11:41PM
vatvince'37,
Not in the least tangentially, I have previously defended Franco, and will not defend ETA, to which only a minute fraction of Basques belong. That said, and for a little perspective, long before Europe's many and varied ethnic groups, including the Celtiberians in Spain, finally established themselves as what you referred to as “national states,” there existed Euskal Herria (the Basque Country). The Basques had been in Spain long before the Celtiberians, Romans, Franks, Moors, Phoenicians, Greeks or anyone else got there, and although fierce warriors, the Basque always found a way to coexist with everyone around them. That is, until the Spanish, and in particular the Castilians, form the monarchy to Franco, though he happened to be of Galician stock himself, sought to and finally suppressed and alienated them. Moreover, the Basques never bombed anyone before Franco with the Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion and Mussolini's air force, bombed the town of Guernica, a site of no military value, but long a centre of great significance to the Basque people, as it was there their ancient Biscayne Assembly met. The Basques never suppressed any of their neighbors as Franco did to them, outlawing their ancient language and customs, and alienating them from the rest of the country, while filling Spanish state coffers from the industrial output of the Basque country, arguably Spain’s most productive region. That all said, long before Franco happened on the scene, the Basque country had been fully incorporated into the so called Spanish nation state or Monarchy, and enjoying considerable cultural, linguistic, political and commercial autonomy, etc. Such, following the passing of Franco and the advent of democracy in Spain, returned to quite a significant degree—though obviously not satisfying the radical ETA separatists who have been clearly repudiated by the overwhelming majority of Basques, Franco would have never contemplated allowing for such autonomy. In so doing, he mostly managed to delay progress and the growth of the country--though, yes, I know and agree, he saved the country from WWII and communism. And for that I am also very grateful to him. Believe me, though, I'm well right of center, but I don't delude myself. There are no saints; though Spaniards, depending on their political perspective, believe Franco to have been either saint or evil. I just see him as what he was, a man of his times, who saved his country while along the way, causing quite a bit of death, destruction, and desolation—as did his opponents in a terrible civil war. When I lived there, in Donostia/San Sebastian, for example, I heard Basques joke that Franco was trying to do to the Basques what his own ancestors, the Galicians, universally believed to be much less sophisticated than the Basques, Catalonians, etc.--had done to themselves. Of further import, I believe, is the fact that centuries ago when Spain was ruled by a monarchy, the same extended special rights or Fueros to the Basques. They in turn incorporated them into their constitution. These Fueros, as John Adams once declared, were a precedent for the United States Constitution. The Basques, one should also know were prior, during and after the Spanish Civil War, one of the most conservative, right of center (see Carlists), and religious peoples in the whole peninsula. This is something they had in common with Franco. Yet, it did not help them, as having aligned themselves with the left of center Republican government at the start of hostilities, owing to their wish to regain most of their lost autonomy per the machinations of the Spanish monarchy--Franco mercilessly punished them as he declared the Basque Country "the traitor provinces.” Franco, contrary to your erroneous claims about the Basques, however you arrived at them, was not only anti-Basque, but anti-Galician, though he was himself one, and anti-Catalonian, anti-Valencian; you name it, he was against it if it did not conform to his vision of Spain.
Oh, and by the way, Franco allowed Hitler’s submarines to resupply in Vigo, Galicia (where I also lived and studied for six months and heard stories, with pictures to boot, from Spaniards who worked at the port facility servicing German submarines). Franco also allowed Gerrman spies to roam about unimpeded; while the Spanish Blue Division fought alongside the Wehrmacht in the siege of Leningrad during WWII. He also provided the Nazis with pyrite, etc., and allowed Spanish banks to function as repositories of ill-gotten Nazi loot. And yes, he did help the Jews, as well he should, for it was the right and decent thing to do.
In concluding, I find your assertion regarding the Basques and their treatment at the hands of Franco, not only wholly without merit, but also meanspirited, and very unfair to not only the oldest inhabiting group in Spain, but in Europe proper, and one of the most enterprising and econonically successful people ever. It appears that although you lived and worked there for four years, or whatever it was (I lived there and studied there for five years), you only learned what you wanted to learn. Now, before you go on and delude yourself into believing me to be some sort of radicalized, ultra left, Franco-hating zealot, keep this in mind: I will be for the rest of my days ever so grateful to Francisco Franco and the Catholic Church, for when I first arrived at its shores as an 11-year-old refugee/exile from a communist country, Spain and Franco welcomed me with open arms, affording me, essentially no more than a ward of the Catholic Church, a respite from fear and persecution—much more than my parents could ever dream of as they were not able to flee their communist tormentors until quite some time later. I learned quite a bit about Spain from books, but much more from the Spanish people themselves. You should do your homework before spouting half-truths and calumnies about those you obviously know very little about.
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Oh, and by the way, Franco allowed Hitler’s submarines to resupply in Vigo, Galicia (where I also lived and studied for six months and heard stories, with pictures to boot, from Spaniards who worked at the port facility servicing German submarines). Franco also allowed Gerrman spies to roam about unimpeded; while the Spanish Blue Division fought alongside the Wehrmacht in the siege of Leningrad during WWII. He also provided the Nazis with pyrite, etc., and allowed Spanish banks to function as repositories of ill-gotten Nazi loot. And yes, he did help the Jews, as well he should, for it was the right and decent thing to do.