https://textsaver.flap.tv/lists/3cqd

Javier: Hi and welcome to a new podcast called "Subidos a la Red". We are welcoming Alex Corretja and I let you introduce our great guest, our friend.

Alex: Thanks Javier, I am happy to hear from you again, I see you've had a lot of success in social network, ever since you got instagram no one is able to distract you, you are all day online, you are like me now.

Javier: You are my inspiration.

Alex: It is a very special occasion with this talk, the first one we did was with Gabriela Sabatini, today we are gonna talk with someone who marked part of my career, I have a lot of respect for him, he was a great rival, very difficult one too, he was one of the most difficult players in the circuit for me but after so many years I think of him as a good friend, a great person and has been a great example for our tennis and continues to be. So Charly Moya, welcome to our podcast, this is your time, you can say whatever you want just remember it may be used against you, welcome.

Charly: Thank you so much both, it's a pleasure to be invited to this talk between friends and colleges and its true that you are both two beasts in social media, you are doing so much. I don’t like technology that much, I had never did an instagram live until Alex asked me to connect for a bit so we would watch a match for a while,

Alex: A match? It was the Roland Garros final where you beat me, and you stole it from your wife,

Charly: Yeah I had to connect with hers, then Skype which I hadn’t used in 15 years. This situation has made us do things we are not used to, we have to reinvent and it’s a pleasure to follow you both, you talk a lot of tennis and people are following you which is great, nowadays these initiatives have come up to talk about sports between us and people who are at home are very thankful indeed.

Javier: So I was checking and you had a very quick climb up the rankings, your first point was in May 1994 and by the start of 1996, in half a year, you were already number 1. Was it part of your dreams and plans or it just happened?

Charly: It was a dream for sure, but the dream of many of us, friends from Palma who never had an ATP point, I think my breakthrough was belated, Alex for example had an stable evolution while I was never a Spain champion nor sub 12 nor sub 14. I played tournaments in the summer, I went to school and I trained in Mallorca and from time to time I’d go to a tournament.

Alex: At that time, when you were a kid, were you thinking of being a professional? Or was it just a game for you?

Charly: I had a clear idea, I wanted to be a tennis player and we have to think of Mallorca in the 80s, at that time the only option to be a tennis pro was to go to Barcelona. Back then the only professional was Alberto Tous coming from Mallorca. So when I told my parents it was like the dream of a boy, now my son wants to be a guitar player and a tennis player, as dreams, but for me it was very clear, but my parents must have thought that I was crazy, it was like if my son now tells me that he wants to be an astronaut. But I loved it and spent so many hours playing in the fronton, my family were occasional players but I loved it, they could leave me in the fronton and I would play for hours.

Alex: Who makes the offer for you to go to Barcelona? That jump is basic in your life,

Charly: Like I told you, since I was playing so few tournaments I guess people saw some potential in me, Lorenzo Farbas who was coaching several players made the offer to my parents so I could go to Barcelona but they declined, I was 14 and they didn’t think it was ok for me to leave home-

Alex: They didn’t trust you to be by yourself, (laughter)

Charly: That denial from them made me feel that the only chance I was ever gonna have was gone, made me then take another chance and avoid burning out being so young and away from home, back then you couldn’t connect so easily with your family like these days. So they said no and I kept winning tournaments in Mallorca and when I was 17 Alberto Tous offered me another opportunity because they RFET opened the CAR in Sant Cugat for the best juniors in Spain to train, I was offered a scholarship to go there with Juan Abeldaño. There they offered me to go to Barcelona where I saw a new world, very different to what I was used to, very professional, I had much more chances to compete while I was very new to competition butat the start it wasn’t that easy. I cried a lot. I went from being the best in Mallorca to be one more of the group at national level but little by little I overcame those obstacles and started gaining my first points.

Javier: When you had that quick raise, it seems that it was well adjusted, because it isn’t just about becoming a better player but also mentally you have to adjust to suddenly being the favorite and having to handle the pressure, what allowed you to have that growth and keep it because it was basically a nonstop raise to number 1,

Charly: They always ask me what the key to get there is and I don’t know what it is. It's a combination of many things. Training more? I didn’t train more than my mates but maybe I was able to assimilate things better, but I don’t know. But I was able to stand out back then. I went through objectives, my first objective was to gain one point, then get to the top 500. I work with objectives, some people can’t. Others work under pressure but in my case I needed to work with clear objectives so I could have a goal. Then my objective was to get to the top 100, all of that happens very fast and then I got into the top 10 very quickly too, in 1995 I won my first title in Buenos Aires and then after a little more than a year I was top 10, after Australia 1997. There’s no guide to know what to do in each case, I had no team, no press coordinator, no image advisor, I lived what Iived at 18 knowing that at 40 I wouldn’t be able to do the same. I knew that from the start, luckily or unluckily, I lived those moments in a particular way.

Alex: Its incredible but the first time we trained together was in Barcelona, I was a bit older than you and you came with Juan Abeldaño and we were doing some drills and I told you to come near the net and you said “No, I don’t get near the net”, I asked why and you said you were afraid of going near the net because players hit too strong. Then you became a net players but when you were 17 years old you wouldn't dare,

Charly: Like I told you, I saw a new world in Barcelona. I’ve always liked to learn new things and experiment. That time I was impressionable as well, and had a lot of respect for Alex, he was already a champion and we sometimes trained with players that were already professionals and for me, who was training 3 months prior with my friends in Mallorca, that was an entire new world and actually, 5 months after meeting with Alex that time, I won a Satellite in Spain, on clay which has pretty hard, doing serve and volley with both serves. I was doing serve and volley with both serves on clay, I mean…

Javier: When you are discovered in Buenos Aires they said that it was a different type of Spaniard because of that,

Charly: I wasn’t doing it so much then but I was different yes, I liked to experiment. I started with serve and volley then you have to understand the state I was back then in 1996. I was a mess, I think of it now and I’m like, I was crazy!. I’d approach the net for no reason, and I think I was a better player later, around 2005, I was much more aware of things, but I lacked the spontaneity I had when I was 19, when I played in Australia against Chang, I did everything. Everything was new and I did it all without thinking. I wasn’t such a good player but I had that spark and dare that I lacked later on when I was more aware of everything and understood tennis better and was more complete but lacked that mentality where you just don’t care, everything is new and you don’t care if you fail, I had no respect for nothing nor no one and it is funny; you would think it is the other way around, to be nervous when you are young and haven’t won a thing, and be more confident when you are 25 and you’ve achieved everything. But my case was different.

Alex: I’m a little bit mad about something, I see pictures of us and people say that you look the same, while I am the opposite. Had I won RG, would I have long hair and no white hair? Javier: Yes you would look cuter, Alex: Or is it that you were so relaxed and I was always stressed out. I see you and then I see myself, bald, and you look the same as back then, people remember you the same,

Charly: You suffered a lot,

Alex: Yes I remember you’d go to the movies before a match! Before a final! I would stay in my room… I envy that of you.

Charly: I did think I was different from the rest, I took things a certain way and the rest the opposite way, I don’t think mine was the right one but I was different and now I see it and think how is it possible that I was doing those things,

Alex: You’d eat a hamburger with chips the night before a match,

Charly: A jabali if I wanted and the next day like nothing. But sometimes I think about it and the current Me wouldn’t be able to coach the 20 year old Me. It would end badly. Now I’m much more conscious of things, I love to read and I have much more access to information. Back then it was different, late 90s and as a 20 years old they could tell me anything and I wouldn't listen. That’s why I say that if my player now did what I was doing when I was 20, it would end badly, I’d quit after 2 weeks.

Javer: Do you feel like at the time, someone like 2020 you would coach yourself and tell you no to all those things, no parties, no eating junk food, no distractions, would you be able to stand it and make it?

Charly: If someone offered me to go back to my 20s I would make the same mistakes, at that time I didn’t think they were mistakes but I would have retired at 25 if I had been under that regime, I think I lasted a lot in terms of the past generation, I retired at 33 and I was one of the older ones back then and one of the keys is that I was able to do things and didn’t give up to do most of them, that gave me the sense that I could live what I wanted to live and not be under such strictness. I liked to have my time and do my things and surely it affected me, but it allowed me to play for longer.

Javier: Let us forget you are Rafa’s coach and imagine you have a fantasy player instead who has to face Carlos Moya in his best form, what would you tell him to beat you?

Alex: I needed this question 20 years ago,

Javier: I want him to take me to a RG final, in our first podcast Alex reminded me that he beat me so I wanted to have Charly to remind Alex of Roland Garros,

Alex: He told me our first interview should be with Moya, I said “No! Sabatini please!”

Charly: Let’s see… obviously I know my game and my weakness,

Alex: Let us change it because he’s still player in the legends circuit,

Javier: Right, he can’t reveal yer,

Alex: How did you play against me to beat me? You can say because you are always going to beat me, you are a hundred times better than me you know that, I can’t compete against you, so Charly, why did you play me the way you used to? Everyone would start off with my backhand and you started on my forehand, I was like, what’s up with this guy,

Charly: Two reasons, I had my plan but you also beat me several times. I saw your forehand, you had a better backhand and if you did a forehand it was easier for me to do a forehand. If I played to your forehand, your parallel must be very good for me to have to do a backhand, I thought if my first was to the forehand, it would allow me to play more with my forehand. I imagine you tried to avoid my forehand.

Alex: Yes, I couldn’t throw at you two forehands cause you’d end me with it, it was basic for me to find your backhand and a bit higher to your backhand or with the slice because you bended a bit too much so when I played bellow the net, you wouldn’t flex your knees that much and made some mistakes in the net, and your first serve was very strong and that made things difficult,

Charly: Yes, I also thought if I wanted to make the point longer and had to be more aggressive. I adjusted that to the player, with you I didn’t want to make it longer, you would tire me more and if the match got longer, that would be in your favour, so I had to take more risks and be more aggressive than with other players. With Alex I tried to make shorter points.

Javier: I made him lose a final. The two times we played he beat me but after one he ended up with cramps and lost the final, I made Corretja run so much, he couldn’t play the final,

Alex: He ruined my first title,

Charly: To die while killing. That happened to me with Rafa. I lost in Chennai against him, 6-7 , 7-6, 6-7, 3 hours and 53 minutes, he played the final the next day and lost 6-1 6-0. If I couldn’t win, he shouldn’t either, (laughing)

Javier: Which player you didn’t like and which one was perhaps very good and you could win or lose but you didn’t mind playing against?

Charly: Alex was a very difficult rival. At the start he was a clay courter and then he evolved to fast cout, even indoor I would say, he made things difficult, if he wanted he could beat you, he would change quickly and make you suffer. Ferrero was also a hard one, but we are talking about great players, Ferrero was a hard one for everyone and they made you feel more nervous and stressed out. Federer, I could never beat him. The first time we played was in 1999 in Marbella, he was a junior and he was 300 in the world, the best junior in the world and I was 3 in the world. He was a WC and he beat me, I was more worried about the next tournament, Indian Wells. I didn’t think it was that important, had I known that was my one chance to beat him, I would have tried harder.

Alex: I saw you both in twitter the other day, about that 7-0, but you won doubles or something,

Charly: In Rome 2007 with Rafa, we played against Federer/Wawrinka in first round, that was my best doubles victory so I had to remind him about that one. Then with Argentinians, Squillari beat me several times, I didn’t like playing him nor Puerta, they would do those short angles to the forehand and it was bothersome. Those players, I had to play against Puerta three consecutive times when he had a very good year, Buenos Aires, Acapulco and Montecarlo, that was in 2005, it was a difficult time for me, I was 27 and I had just won the Davis Cup, my last big objective. I was a bit down in 2005 and I had Puerta when he was 200 something and he beats me twice in a row and I thought that was impossible. It was the year he was in the RG final so I wasn’t that bad but those results made you question yourself. I was losing against a kid that I had beat all my life. Then in Montecarlo again but I knew he was at a very good level, then he gets to the RG final. But it did affect me losing so many times against him.

Alex: Would you have beaten Moya, as a lefty?

Javier: He came years after I was retired, I didn’t give him the chance to beat a lefty easily.

Charly: Hey I bet some (he beat Rafa twice in HC :D) but they were hard on me,

---- Starts the Carlos Rafa Number One Fan Moya fest -----

Javier: You said that you reached a moment when you would need to reinvent yourself after a success. Last time Rafa won RG I was narrating and I mentioned a line from a songwriter that said that it’s harder to overcome success, it’s easier to overcome failure, one can fight and work harder and see your mistakes but success is much harder. With your experience and closeness with Rafa, what does he do to keep evolving?

Charly: That’s what I admire the most about him and these great players. They win a tournament and they are already thinking of the next competition. That's what separates them from us mortals. I mentioned I was objective based and high objectives but in the end they were just goals that I would achieve and then I was demotivated. My goal wasn’t to win 5 grand slams, it was to win 1 grand slam. It was to be number 1, not number 1 for several years. Then I was empty, I lacked ambition. I was comfortable with the goals I achieved and then I felt down immediately, like after that Davis Cup. With Rafa I see that hunger he has, being at this stage of his career regardless of what he has already achieved and what he goes through, I live day by day with him and see how he struggles mentally during the year, and then I see that when the moment comes, he gets this strength I don’t know where from. I don’t think it is coachable, it is in his genes. If someone knew how to teach that, you could coach them and maybe you can lead him in some way but there’s something innate that allows the 3 big ones of history to keep making this career they have and how they keep competing. For me, after the grand slam I won, I went afterwards to Halle, afterwards I went home, and I spent two weeks partying. I was number 1 and before Miami I was already partying. These guys when they win they celebrate and in a couple of days they are training again to win the next thing. The ambition they have and the need to keep getting better, their competitiveness, is something out of the ordinary.

Alex: It is hard for me to transmit how incredible Rafa is and what his achievements are. We are narrating and people sometimes say to us that it looks as if Rafa was paying us to make say all those things, I don’t know how to explain that what Rafa does doesn’t exist, people think I exaggerate and you are here and you are a GS champion and an ex number 1, he doesn’t do that once, he does it time after time, what do you feel? You are with him day by day, I want people to see that someone inside also feels this,

Charly: The deeper you are and the longer you are - you realise how admirable he is even more, what he is and does, it is hard for me to criticize Rafa, even when people say that he isn’t playing well and he loses, but I know he’s done his best. It's impossible to criticize him, after all he’s achieved but more than that, the attitude that he has everyday. In each match I am reassured in knowing that he’s gonna give everything and do his best, that you are going to have to kill him in order to beat him. In my time, the match started to get difficult and- Not Alex but,

Alex: Me too, you’d throw away matches. But Rafa even training, from the first ball his intensity is immeasurable,

Charly: You have to stop him while training. I don’t think that he knows this… During tournaments, on training days, I ask workers to give us a court that someone has to come later to ask us to leave. (Laughter), every other coach wants the opposite, more time and hours, I ask them to please give us a court but make sure that someone comes later to force us to leave, I don’t want him to be practicing more than certain hours, in some tournaments more, in some less but if it was up to him, he’d keep going and going and you have to stop him and if the court is empty is difficult to force him. Now he’s starting to understand but at the start… Workers were confused, didn’t I mean a court where no one came? I’d say no no, give us a court where within the hour someone needs it please. But that’s Rafa, how perfectionist and self demanding he is, he doesn’t himself allow mistakes. It is a pleasure to be with him, you don’t find someone who gives you that assurance that he’s gonna fight and face the match whether he’s playing good or badly. If you made me choose whom to rest my life on, I would choose him.

Javier: It always looks like he’s playing the same match, no matter if it is round 1, semis, final, Federer, Djokovic or a lucky loser but to have someone who seems to understand so well, as a coach what do you make of the situation to present to him ideas? There are things that he may not see, but how easy is it for you to suggest or correct him?

Charly: One of the great things about him is how open he is to listen and keep learning and getting better. I know that whatever I say he is going to decide what to take. I know I am dealing with one of the greater in history, I won’t be right all the time, but whatever I say to him I have already thought it through, i have analyzed it before I say it to him. When I started he had already won 14 grand slams, so I knew he could very much question what I say and I’m sure he does it still sometimes, but as long as one idea helps him. His greatness is to be so open to keep evolving, and one of the keys was that I came after 2 bad years when he had a lot of issues, mentally, he had anxiety and injuries. When you change something in the team means that the player isn’t at their best so it was easier for him to be more open to this new voice. All the team went for the change, I knew very well what Rafa could improve and everyone agreed. All can improve, perfection in tennis is never achieved, there’s something that you can always improve, and we all knew wha Rafa could improve. I was very open to him from the start, and he was willing to listen, he agreed on many things and we worked on them.

Alex: We could talk with you for four hours, but sincerely I don’t think you could ever coach someone else.

Charly: Yes, I know that. Our relationship is above all. I know him since he was 11, we’ve lived so many things inside and outside the court. These days I am watching old videos, we have lived so many things as friends and partners. This factor impacts everything, what you feel during a match, it is hard to separate, to see someone who you’ve seen evolved since he was 11 and he’s a best friend and to see him achieve all he has when you are with him. That emotional factor will be impossible to have with anyone else, unless my son and he won’t, but the only thing that would come equally to this is to live the same with a son, there’s a huge emotional factor. To live this with him and see him break records, first as the youngest and now as the oldest, makes you feel very proud and makes it hard to live something similar again.

Javier: Do you feel this hard stop would make it harder for Rafa and Federer to come back, they had a rhythm and a focus that may not be easy to get back. Do they have a bigger challenge compared to the younger ones to come back?

Charly: I think that now everything is a question, we don’t know who has been the most affected. Some will be more affected than others for sure, it is hard to see. If you are older you do have less time on court, maybe they were able to rest but it is time that is lost, the younger ones will have more time to make up for this year lost but I can’t tell you who is the more affected, perhaps Djokovic since he had a big run but not being able to play the clay season affected Rafa too, within the 3 maybe the less affected was Federer. His timing was great (laughter) but he had to come back to Wimbledon without much competition and as great as he is it was never going to be easy for him. But anything we can say right now is speculation, we’ve never lived through a situation like this.

Alex: To end, the Pele football, do you still have it? I threw it away,

Charly: I threw it away and I think he was very angry that we were playing with it. I have a very lousy memory but I remember clearly, he was mad we used it when he had signed it for us,

Alex: So you don’t have it?

Charly: Of course not! In that moment everyone gives you things and you just throw them away (After his RG win), you aren't conscious, I wasn’t there anymore!

Alex: The other day with Marca, they asked us what we had saved from the Davis Cup and they mentioned all these things and I hadn’t saved anything, I have nothing, do you?

Charly: Nothing, not even my shirt, I have no clue where it is. And I regret it, maybe now would be fun to see those things but that’s how I managed it, but I don’t like to see backwards,

Javier & Charly: (End and thanks Charly)

This post has been viewed 562 times.