Interview with Manolo Santana, in June 2016

Our colleague, and journalist, Goyo Ybort had planned to carry out an extensive interview with Manolo Santana, making it coincide with the season in which the tennis player celebrates the 50th anniversary of his world number one and his victory at Wimbledon.

Also, that this interview should be done in their own environment. The Velázquez Tennis Club (later headquarters of the Iberia headquarters in the capital) disappeared, where Santana started; the extinct Real Club de Tenis López Maeso, in Aravaca, of which he was president and where he inaugurated the first grass court in Spain together with López Maeso himself, Borg, Vilas, Nastase and Clerc, in June 1994; there remained the Racquets Club of Marbella, his great passion and refuge.

And so it was. In the privileged space of Marbella tennis, Santana shared a day and experiences that we make public today in our environment.

Manolo Santana Martínez, a man from Madrid who lives in Marbella, was a member of a simple family. From a very young age, he loved tennis: he disassembled a chair to build himself the closest thing to a racket. He earned his first pesetas, for himself and for his house, running two blocks to procure taxis for the members of the Velázquez Tennis Club during the summer season.

Then his prosperity turned into victories at Roland Garros in 1961 and 1964, also in doubles in 1963 with Roy Emerson; at the US Open in 1965 and at Wimbledon in 1966. In addition, he won another 70 tournaments.

He was in the world's top ten for seven years in the early '60s; being named number 1 on the planet in 1966. He was captain of the Spanish Davis Cup team, and played, as a player, the 1965 and 1967 finals on grass. He took part in the debut of tennis at the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968, as a demonstration sport, and won the gold medal.

Today he is the director of the Mutua Madrid Open, 1000 ATP masters, and he still remembers his mother as the architect of his brilliant history.

From your point of view, what are the ideal scales that a child should follow from school to his hypothetical goal in elite sport? Would they match your beginnings?

“I hope they are better than mine, because thanks to the support of so many people I have gotten where I have. When I was 10 years old, I saw a tennis racket for the first time, at the Velázquez Tennis Club -in Madrid-, which was beautiful. I saw tennis there and since I liked it a lot I tried to escape on Saturdays and Sundays to go pick up balls at the club. So, for a boy that he likes, when he leaves school and having free time, directly, it will not be necessary for them to insist a lot, because he will be the one who will decide to go at the hours he can because his studies leave him . You have to like tennis, first; because, nowadays, much more is demanded of young people, because they begin to play much sooner and at 7 or 8 years old they already hit the ball very well. So, from school to competitive tennis, you have to have enthusiasm, I don't like the word sacrifice, to arrive one day, picking up your idea of ​​the game, also watching tournaments live or on television”.

In the beginning, how did you pay for your trips, your clothes, your snowshoes?

“I was lucky, or I looked for it. When my father died I was 14 years old and some members of the tennis club half adopted me. I started playing in the afternoons and in the mornings I studied. I will never forget this family, the Romero Girón, who lived on the corner of Goya and Velázquez. For me it was a brutal change that, obviously, when you take up tennis with enthusiasm and a lot, a lot, hope, you can go a long way. They paid me for everything, who was going to sponsor me then? if people didn't know if the ball was round or square, they had no idea about tennis; and it was logical, after so many years of problems, only those who had the financial means could play tennis”.

How were your first rackets?

“Obviously in the C.T. Velázquez I had no chance of having any racket. I loved it, I watched a lot, a lot, tennis; So, when I was 10 years old, when I had some free time and since I had no other solution, I found the back (entirely of wood) of a wooden chair, I tore off another piece to make the handle and from there I made myself a kind of racket. and there that gave my rackets. Imagine when they gave me a real racket. That first real racket was given to me by a club member, which was warped, and I started playing with it. Either you hit the center or the ball went away, it was very complicated ”.

Where did you train dirt, grass, cement?

“The grass didn't exist. I started traveling when I was 17 years old, I played the junior in Barcelona, ​​that was my first trip; and it was played on clay. So, I trained on clay at Club de Campo and at Velázquez, where I learned to play”.

Do you think that, in general, the issue of sponsorship in Spanish grassroots sports has been well worked on and resolved?

“Nope. It is very difficult for them to bet on a certain player, if you do not have the help of the federations and the clubs it is very difficult to compete. Leaving the base is very difficult. Nowadays you need a coach, a physio, a place to train, you have to travel, you need a very important economic power to be able to leave. That doubles the merit of Spanish athletes. Furthermore, we are one of the countries with the most tennis players in the top twenty in the world”.

Would you like to be able to import a formula from another country for the promotion or training of athletes for Spanish sports?

“From the United States. I would bring Pepe Higueras, who was number 7 in the world. When I saw him in Paris, I loved it, because I hadn't seen him for a long time. He is working for the US federation, unfortunately, because he knows a lot about tennis, and it would be great to incorporate him into our discipline."

Which organization, which country, do you find most exemplary when it comes to organizing tournaments and training young tennis players?

“Now Spain is in the incredible line of organizing tournaments for juniors, children, seniors, high-class tournaments. We have two great tournaments, Conde de Godó and our tournament in Madrid, which is a luxury to have the possibility of all the best players coming to play in our tournaments. Besides, from my experience, England”.

If it were in your hands, how would you improve the panorama of international tournaments in Spain?

“As long as there are no agreements between federations, clubs and sponsors, it is complicated, because it is true that the juniors need a lot of help and, really, the clubs do not have much money to support them, and everything has to be based on finding sponsors who like sports and like tennis”.

What is the essence of the Mutua Madrid Open? What does it report to tennis players?

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“First, the most important thing is to recognize what we do with the juniors and the little ones who play their tournaments, where the winners know that they will be in Madrid, playing on the same courts where the great champions train. I think it is a tremendous motivation for those young people who are going to be professionals tomorrow. But, at the same time, a lot of people play who are not going to dedicate themselves to professional tennis, who want to have fun and who want to have a good time. The clues in the Caja Mágica are excellent”.

What are the biggest satisfactions and biggest setbacks for someone in charge of a major tournament?

“The satisfactions, when you talk to the players. Now in New York, we usually have a meeting with the players and the manager and now, more or less, they give us an idea of ​​who is going to come to Madrid. So, the satisfaction is that there is a player, like Roger Federer, for example, who this year, when he retired, gave a press conference and the first thing he said is 'I'm sorry for Manolo, after the enthusiasm he has shown for this tournament. , but unfortunately I can't play it'. That, for me, was enormously satisfying, that he recognized the effort we made for him to be in Madrid.

There are always nerves, but they go away when you've been coming in at 8 in the morning for a week and leaving at 2 in the morning; So, you are already used to everyday meetings, in which we are taking care of all the details, not only are the tracks, but everything that the stands, the restaurants, the ball boys, the line judges have, who they are very important to us; It is the set of what an organization of such an important tournament takes ”.

Can you order physical strength, mental strength and technical quality?

“Technical quality. Then mental, because you get to the physical if you have a good trainer, if you like to sacrifice yourself, and you spend as much time as you think so that you gain enough strength. The part that you have to develop is how you are going to play one game or another, since not all opponents are the same. There are people who don't watch much tennis and I have dedicated my whole life to watching a lot of tennis, to watching many matches. If I played with you and you beat me, obviously I thought how I have to do to beat him. My objective was to try to copy from the greats, to see the mistakes that players always have. I have spent many hours watching tennis and now I watch a final calmly, I love it. Fortunately, my wife likes it like me or more; so I don't have that problem of being told that I'm fed up with tennis”.

From your point of view, what would be the ideal player archetype to be number 1 in the world?

“Rod Laver, because he had an amazing ability to play, being short like me. Today, Rafa Nadal, because he has an extraordinary physique, I love to see how he develops the matches. Undoubtedly, to win as many times as he has beaten Federer, you have to play very well point after point every game and Rafa is very good at that”.

What difference in rackets, by blows, is there between the ones you used in those great triumphs and the ones you use now?

“When I see rackets like the ones you brought me (Slazenger Challenge nº 1 and Spalding Manolo Santana), or see the ones I have around here, I ask myself: how could we play tennis with these rackets, with the effort that had to be made. Above all, I learned from the Australians to hit a topspin shot, which with those rackets is practically impossible, but we did it because we had no other choice. So, I learned from the Australians to play like that and fortunately it paid off for me. The wooden rackets have nothing to envy to the current ones, the only thing that happens is that, logically, you cannot compare some stages with others, the clothing, players, clothes, shoes. Every time I go to Wimbledon I ask myself how we could maintain that we couldn't even sit down. In exchanges we couldn't sit down, if you wanted to go to the bathroom you couldn't and if you had an injury you had to put up with it and if you couldn't play you had to give up. Now there are many more facilities, and I'm glad it's like that, because it makes it easier for the player. I played the final of the US Open, in New York, on grass, and it started to rain; and there was a Mexican player, Rafael Osuna, who was a close friend of mine, we competed a lot together because we had very similar tennis, and he saw that I was constantly slipping, but they didn't want to stop the match because it wasn't raining enough. So, he came up in one of the changes and said: why don't you put on some socks, which I'm going to buy, and every two sets you change them for the dry ones and you'll see how you don't fall. And that's how I played the final, with my foot sliding inside the shoe”.

Which participation with the Spanish team do you have the best memory of? Because?

“When we played the Olympics in Mexico in 1968, which was an exhibition. Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was a man who had an incredible vision of sport, told me one day: 'Manolo, tennis has to be within the disciplines of the Games' and I told him how I can help you. He told me, 'I have already managed to get the exhibition to be played for the first time in 1968, and they promised me that it would enter in 1972'. The tournament was organized in Guadalajara, he gave me carte blanche so that I could pay what I had to pay the players, I took the best there was at that time and I was lucky to win the gold medal and the double with Manolo Orantes. It was an enormous satisfaction that we gave Juan Antonio and he always, whenever he could, gave us a hand”.

What does the Racquets Club of Marbella mean to you?

“My second home. I love it. I spent 20 years in Puente Romano. When I arrived in Marbella, Björn Borg was there before me. When he decided that it was not his thing to be living on the Costa del Sol, he proposed me to run the Puente Romano club. That club, which is beautiful, is all built as the owner wanted, who gave me carte blanche for how I would make the best club, because he had to sell all the land next to him and the apartments. It was a very good combination. for me. That connection that I still have with Puente Romano is very important.

Racquets was born from a meeting between the Marbella town hall and Puente Romano, because they think that Manolo Santana could be the one to come to this club, which was already somewhat built. And when I saw that it was a beautiful place, obviously, I decided to leave the address of Puente Romano and come here. It is a pleasure for me to come here every day, because first I do my physical preparation, then, from time to time, with one of the monitors we make some baskets of balls, we eat here and we don't have dinner here because the club closes. I spend practically all day here. In this club we have many international visitors and a good and numerous children's school”.

What do you think you've done well to be so recognized over time?

“Being the son of an extraordinary woman (Mercedes). My mother was the one who taught me. First, we must not forget that my father spent ten years in jail when the civil war ended. My mother, who had every right to be able to criticize, never spoke about it at home, with which I have developed in a minority sport, where the people who played tennis were the ones who could afford it. I have learned a lot to recognize my mistakes, which I have many; but really when I said I was wrong and I tried to achieve the goal, it is what has helped me to be a tennis player and get where I have arrived in tennis. Since I had no idea on grass, I won at Roland Garros and I got to Wimbledon and they beat me, so I had to find the solution to one day win the most that can be won: a tournament like Wimbledon. I celebrate this 50th anniversary even more, because I go every year and the English take great care of their figures, their stars. I do not consider myself a figure or a star, what I do consider myself to be is a good player, thanks to tennis I have achieved what you are seeing here and everything that is behind it. I'm still there, because I love it, because it's easy for me to catch a plane to see Roland Garros, Wimbledon or the US Open. I go to Rome every year because I am a good friend of Nicola Pietrangeli, the president of the tournament. I like being involved because, furthermore, I am convinced that if I were not so involved in the world of tennis, people would say who Santana is; and that I would accept. In fact, many athletes stop playing sports, go to their office or whatever job they have and kind of disappear from the world of competition. I am so involved in the competition, that I love it, and then… I don't watch a game for 5 minutes, I watch the entire game. Unfortunately, in my tournament in Madrid I have so many things to do, but from time to time I go to the box, calm, and watch the matches I like”.

What have been your best and worst moments in sports?

“I only remember the good ones, the pretty ones. The others, I know what I've done, as I said before, that I always try to correct things that don't turn out the way I like them”.

And the best are wins?

“I don't want it to be taken as vanity, but I am one of the few players who have always won when I have reached the final. I remember a ball boy tournament at the Velázquez, when I reached the final at the age of 12 and won. First final that I played in the Spanish junior championship, I went to Barcelona and won. First grand slam I played and I won it. First tournament I played on grass, final of the US Open and I won it, so…”

Do you think that child back then could have been pushed by the duty to be grateful to those who had supported him?

“I loved that my mother, when she arrived, the poor thing would always ask me: and what is tennis like? She had no idea, but I knew that when she went to play a tournament it was always cleaner than anything, because she took complete care of doing it. Above all, the great sacrifice she made to take care of four boys, a very difficult problem. I have to say that Manolo Santana's champion has been my mother”.

What do you like to remember and pass on from your beginnings in tennis?

“The effort and the characteristics of knowing that as it is an individual sport you are the one who has to solve your problem, when you go out on the track, although I am talking about 50 years ago. The problem that there is often is that they blame the racket, that the court is not adequate, that they are tired, and, obviously, we have all gone through that; So, I always try, when I see a kid who likes tennis, I go to see him and ask him, do you know me? Some say no and others yes. A 7 or 8 year old does not have to know me, so his father is already in charge of telling him what I have done in the world of tennis ”.

To finish, what are your hopes, personal and sporting?

“To live 20 more years, which I am sure I will do, I am convinced, what happens is that with 98 I would be a bit screwed but I will be involved in the world of tennis, for sure. Above all, what I will do is make a lot of drop shots to the opponents so they don't get to the ball”.

Dedication to the journalist: “I hope you get the most out of this interview, and that you see the positive part, which is what is really important in life”.