{"id":77220,"date":"2016-04-19T21:02:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T20:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desarrollo.mutuamadridopen.com\/?p=52326"},"modified":"2016-04-19T21:02:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T20:02:48","slug":"my-love-is-15-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/my-love-is-15-years-old\/","title":{"rendered":"My love is 15 years old"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Menayo*<\/em><\/p>\n

If you were a little shocked when you read the title of this piece, don’t worry, breathe easy and keep reading. The Mutua Madrid Open is celebrating its birthday; what better time to recount a few war stories?<\/p>\n

I remember the first ever staging of the tournament, back in 2002, when it was a Tennis Masters Series event. Back then it was held in the Rock\u00f3dromo in Casa de Campo, in October and on hardcourt. I experienced the first year as a spectator. I had seen a lot of live tennis matches, but I had never had the chance to watch Andre Agassi. I chose the worst day, the final.<\/p>\n

When I got to the court they announced that the American’s opponent -Jiri Novak- could not play because he was injured and that we would see an exhibition match between Carlos Moy\u00e0 and Pato Clavet instead. It was not the same thing, but I had a good time. Far from causing me eternal frustration, the incident left me wanting more and so I began to attend the tournament every year, always as a fan, until I managed to finish my degree, find a job and experience it as a journalist.<\/p>\n

My debut with a journalist’s pass in my pocket was at the 2007 TMS. From that year, when the best David Nalbandian in my memory took the spoils -beating Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer on the trot- I remember three special moments: the casting for the model-ballboys, the first big innovation of a tournament that has always sought to be at the forefront; the two sides of the Djokovic coin, capable of both making the journalists wait 45 minutes in the press room and taking to the court in a Real Madrid shirt; experiencing Ivo Karlovic’s serve from less than a metre away (I never saw a player serve with such virulence), or the five-star catering, where those colleagues that you would never see when a day’s play spilled over into the early hours had a permanent spot.<\/p>\n

2009 was moving time. From the Madrid Arena to the Caja M\u00e1gica and from cement to clay. From a range of winners to always crowning one of the Big Four (Nadal -three-, Federer -two-, Djokovic -one-, Murray -one-). From only enjoying the ATP players, to also relishing the stars of the WTA. Great news for tennis lovers!<\/p>\n

It was hard for us to get used to the majesty of the construction, the overload of matches and the computer multitasking. Above all with the birth of Setball.radio, a project that was born out of RadioMARCA and found its feet on level -2 of the facility. It is an honour for any writer to have been present at its gestation, sharing good times on air with colleagues and stars of the tennis world.<\/p>\n

Like on any self-respecting birthday, you get a wish before blowing out the candles: mine would be for Stadium two to be called the Virginia Ruano Stadium. I do not believe Madrid tennis could have a better godmother than \u2018the third musketeer\u2019. Congratulations and many happy returns\u2026<\/p>\n

*David Menayo is a journalist for MARCA, he has been part of Setball.radio and covered various tournaments on tour, as well as the London Olympic Games in 2012<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Menayo* If you were a little shocked when you read the title of this piece, don’t worry, breathe easy and keep reading. The Mutua Madrid Open is celebrating its birthday; what better time to recount a few war stories? I remember the first ever staging of the tournament, back in 2002, when it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77221,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[807,57,17,117,772],"class_list":["post-77220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mutua-news","tag-andre-agassi-en","tag-manolo-santana-en","tag-mutua-madrid-open-en","tag-rafael-nadal-en","tag-the-caja-magica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}