Everything started from a simple deduction: If London, Paris or New York are home to major tournaments, why wouldn’t the city of Madrid be able to do the same?. Just into the new century, Manolo Santana, a legend of Spanish tennis, began devising what today has become a seductive contest, which locates the Spanish capital in the map of world tennis and stirs the San Fermin area for 10 days.
The event started in 2002 and has since mutated completely, with a facelift that includes everything from the moving of the Magic Box, to the change of the surface on which it is played. Santana, the director of the Madrid Open, was the one who devised the tournament all those years back, but the takeoff of the tournament would not have been possible without the financial sponsorship of billionaire Ion Tiriac.
The 76 year old Romanian, on his heyday, was an Olympic ice hockey player and later in life a professional tennis player -Won the doubles at Roland Garros with Ilie Nastase-, he is the one who pushed financially one of the Masters 1000 that began celebration in the month of October and ended up moving to May, started on a synthetic carpet and now offers the best courts “with the best clay” according to Rafael Nadal, and besides the efforts of Santana and Tiriac has a third fundamental pillar of birth: Andre Agassi.
“I had the chance to play against him and it was amazing,” recalls Feliciano Lopez. “He was the key, with him it all started,” says Santana; We had given way to the tournament, but we needed a big claim to make it into something attractive, beyond logistics and organizational aspects. We had the continent but we lacked the content.
And then came Andre Agassi, one of the greats. When he agreed to play in Madrid it was a clear domino effect and gradually we started snagging other big figures. He came and thereafter all the big names have passed through here and the best: Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, And also on the female tournament counterpart alike we have: Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova as the domino effect gave the tournament true adhesion on the sport track and is now one of the consolidated Masters 1000.
The American, who staged a retrospective rivalry with Pete Sampras back in the nineties, was the first winner of a list that since then has been adding more and more great names like Juan Carlos Ferrero, Marat Safin, David Nalbandian, Federer or Andy Murray. Nadal also, with only 17 years of age received his first invitation in 2004 and since then has raised four titles in Madrid (2005, 2010, 2013 and 2014). “It’s a special tournament for me because it is at home and that always makes it different. The players do not have too many opportunities to be home and I try to enjoy it to the fullest, “says the Spaniard.
This year the Madrid Open celebrates its fifteenth anniversary with a top notch list of the tennis greats in the men’s category and on the female counterpart a more lukewarm reception this year with the excitement held back, just a tad, by the absence of Serena and Sharapova.
Today they offer both men and women tournaments, but the history shows us that until 2009 the Open was strictly male; and could not be mixed until certain regulations and statutes (ATP and WTA) were granted and licensed, which coincided with the transfer of the Rockódromo (current Madrid Arena) the lavish complex of the Magic Box, designed by French architect Dominique Perrault. “When I come here I always get a little more nervous, really,” says Garbiñe Muguruza already are ference among the women’s tournaments and currently ranked 4 in singles.
Gone are other chapters, none as controversial as the commitment to blue clay in 2012. Many players have criticized the state of the tracks and faced Tiriac, understanding that it was a marketing strategy that penalizes only the comfort players.
Correcting the error, the redness returned to upholster the main and the rest of the first class tracks. And in them the fight on next week matchups. From the draw made on Saturday, Nadal and Djokovic would not face each other until a hypothetical final. The Spaniard debut on Wednesday against Viktor Troicki or Andrey Kuznetsov, and on the horizon Federer (quarter) and Murray (semifinals) are the potential in his path.
