Am I being facetious?? Seriously, I'm not so sure. My lunch time is where I usually spend a good 40 minutes just surfing the world wide web and seeing what's out there about Rafa. And today I nearly fell off my chair with the influx of "Nadal to withdraw from Australian Open" stories. So much so that even on Rafa's Facebook, his daily dose today read like this ...
"He visto que han salido recogidas declaraciones mías de manera errónea con respecto mi calendario. Me estoy preparando para los torneos inicialmente previstos de Abu Dhabi, Doha, Melbourne y Acapulco para empezar el año. Por ahora es lo que tengo en mente.
I've seen that they have reported my collected statements incorrectly with respect to my calendar. I am preparing myself for the initially anticipated tournaments of Acapulco, Melbourne, Doha and Abu Dhabi to start the year. For now it is what I have in mind. (Translated by Bing)"
I struggle what to say sometimes really. I mean, I've found Toni's public ramblings an utter nuisance during Rafa's injury lay off. They have been confusing, conflicting and at times down-right unhelpful, as time-frame after reported Toni time-frame for Rafa's return elapsed causing hysteria in some quarters and casting doubt in others as to even the legitimacy of Rafa's injury - reflecting badly on Rafa in that regard which is what I entirely dislike.
So I've much preferred just listening to what Rafa himself has had to say. And for the most part, it's been the same old statements of working hard on his recovery and that he'll only be back when he's 100%. But Rafa is back on the court now and his media work is stepping up a bit. He's done a couple of radio interviews this week and I've done my best to bring you some sound bites. The trouble is, he's a Spanish boy giving interviews in Spanish and Mallorquin to local radio. Of course it's filmed, recorded and covered, and every lazy media hack out there has tried to translate and piece together what has been said to make some sort of story out of it. And for a large part, a number of them have got it wrong, or made Rafa's words unnecessarily alarmist. Rafa hopes to be in Australia, but he doesn't expect to win it. Where does that translate into him missing Australia and only coming back at Monte Carlo??
That's why I ask the question, should he live like a hermit? Should Rafa as a public person say absolutely nothing? Well of course not, because that wouldn't work, and as a public person because of what he does in sport ... he has to engage the media, doesn't he?
I just felt a bit fed up for Rafa though that whether it be he, Benito, or a combination of the both of them, they felt compelled to think that making a Facebook statement was necessary. I can't exactly remember who on Twitter said this (my apologies, but it could have been attributed to @jesna3) but if Rafa was winning 6-0, 6-0, 5-1 and someone came and asked him at the changeover if he was going to win, he'd still say that his opponent had a good chance and shouldn't be under-estimated.
Do you get my drift?
*sigh* It's been a tough 6 months, let's just all hang on in there.
You've given public voice to the utter frustration that besets many of us watching this unruly, ongoing media mess. It's bad enough when Rafa's playing, but in the last 6 months of injury time-out this feeding frenzy has got entirely out of control.
ReplyDeleteMedia sensationalism to some extent afflicts all the Top 4 men and women, but Rafa does seem to attract the most extreme manifestation. Especially his supposed difficulties with English are used as a cover and an excuse by lazy, mischievous, or hostile press and bloggers to ratchet up the drama and whip up the angst--and, of course, inflate the numbers of listeners, readers, and followers. Only the few true journalists seem interested in abiding the standards of their profession.
At the end of this, we'll be lucky if Rafa wants to give so much as smile and a wave to the public.