Paula Badosa shows her immense happiness on camera—with her left foot, which she reserves for the right for the racket: “Third time's the charm.” And so it is, because Melbourne hosts this Tuesday the demolition of the wall that prevented it from going further in a major tournament, impossible in the previous attempts in Paris (2021) and New York (2024); those days without a prize, nerves and more nerves inside her, lack of control, that anxiety that agitates and corrodes like termites. However, this Badosa of recent times is gaining ground on the court and surprising herself, because she looks in the mirror and sees another player; a Tennis player who grows stone by stone, without the need to fall into grandiloquence; The day-to-day route is usually the ideal one. And that's how well she performs against the American Coco Gauff, the number three in the world, in tow from start to finish: 7-5 and 6-4 (in 1h 44m).
“I think I am a better player, more mature, I manage emotions better; Not always, but I try. “This is a dream come true,” she says as soon as the outcome is known, happy and full, but at the same time contained. There is the evolution and the good news, that wall that falls and that overcoming oneself today, but the work, he clarifies, is by no means finished. A bigger challenge lies ahead, perhaps Sabalenka or perhaps Pavlyuchenkova, on Thursday, and the Melbourne mission continues. Nonconformist by nature, she prohibits herself from slowing down, now that she is a couple of steps away from what she has given so much thought to and desires so much. “I agree, Paula was born to do great things,” says her coach, Pol Toledo, who watches from the bench at the foot of the court and enjoys because his player dictates, resists when she has to and flies.
That last right cross makes Badosa the fifth Spanish semi-finalist on a great stage, after Lilí Álvarez opened the way and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, Conchita Martínez and Garbiñe Muguruza, all of them fabulous, jumped on the bandwagon at the end of the 20th century. And what does this say to her, who has always lost dreams of doing something great one day in her sport? Yes, it is possible, and in addition to that good plant and those great shots, she has the ability to resist a persistent competitor like Gauff, who had beaten her on the last two occasions, Rome and Beijing, last year. This is off to a great start for the Catalan, once again among the ten strongest on the circuit and on the verge of a bigger event here, facing a greater slope. At these levels, the story is as much about tennis as it is about head. He is learning it.
-“A year ago I was here and I didn't know if my back was going to give up,” he remembers, thinking about those painful days of cortisone, doctors and very bad times with his spine and the blessed L4 vertebra. And he adds: “Today I wanted to play my best tennis and I think I did.” Wow yes. Lady Coast to Coast Demonstration; at first because of putting up with the labyrinthine script of the first partial, very even forces but she taking the initiative all the time, little by little unhinging Gauff, 20 years old; and then for that reason another of keeping the shield firm and holding on when the American, finally freed because she already sees herself lost, has tried to recover the lost ground. A kick into the net and a very violent right that sweeps the North American's feet seals the opening, and that tells the opponent at each point that not even the GEOs will be able to get her off the court. does the rest.
Most long trades fall on your side. Quite a message. Here I am, Coco. and the drive de Gauff squeaks more and more, so the mental battle is definitely consuming Florida. The 2023 US Open champion, a star project still under construction, logically ends up surrendering to the torrent of tennis that has been thrown at her. Badosa, 27 years old, embraces the victory and with it scares away a few demons that marked the limit for him. But she believes, nothing has made the thought go away. He wants to look from you to you at those above. “I am competing against the best in the world and I am going to play in the semifinals. I didn't think that a year later I would be here,” he says before signing a good handful of balls and leaving the elegant Melbourne headquarters, where he had never paraded in the competition. In the antipodes, the best Badosa that has been seen so far. “Definitely”.
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