Galina Arnaud-Kostadinova has been reunited with her three daughters. On Wednesday, at midday, this Swiss woman returned from an express return trip to Malaga. On Tuesday, she witnessed from the inside what turned out to be the last performance as a professional player of Rafael Nadal, 38, eliminated with Spain by the Netherlands in the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup.
From the Parc des Bastions, in Geneva, the 45-year-old woman, who plays tennis in Cologny, catches her breath. “The plane did me good. Because when I got up, I didn’t recognize myself, she sums up. It had already been difficult with Roger Federer. But here, it’s even stronger. Rafa is my champion. I still can’t accept that this is the end.”
An unconditional fan since 2008, Galina has seen him play around thirty times, especially at Roland-Garros and Monte-Carlo. So when the Majorcan announced the end of his career, on October 10, she took tickets for Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. “I got an alert on my phone and I bought my tickets within two minutes,” she laughs.
Nadal retired, Galina has put her tickets for the weekend on sale and will undoubtedly lose a little money. But she doesn’t regret anything. “He gave everything. But I felt that he was already accepting what came next. He didn’t have the body language of someone who knew he was going to win. He was no longer the warrior from before, we see that he has come a long way. He is at peace, and his fans can be too.”
From her place, halfway up the room, Galina cried a lot during the ceremony for the man with 22 Grand Slams. She waited for her hero until the middle of the night outside the enclosure. Without success. “I still have my memories. I loved watching him play. I took the best of what he had given. This is worth more than photos or signed balls.”
