A Nadal-size void in Paris

From organisers to his biggest rival to Gen Next players, everyone is missing the 14-time champion at the French Open

- Rutvick Mehta

Marc Maury, the French Open announcer, couldn’t help himself. And so the iconic voice behind Rafael Nadal’s entry and introduction on Court Philippe-Chatrier — the one infusing unparalleled vigour in the first two letters of the name and almost breathlessly rattling off his title-winning years there — recreated the entire sequence in Spanish.

Except this time, instead of the 14-time Roland Garros champion walking in and waving to spectators with the voice in the background, Maury did it standing by an empty showpiece court for a video on Saturday.

That happened to be Nadal’s 37th birthday. It is an occasion marked almost exclusively in the Parisian summer since 2005, with the Spaniard adding another year to his age and, in all but four tries, another title to his Grand Slam tally. The Roland Garros organisers join the party, rolling out a life-size cake on Chatrier for an almost-embarrassed Nadal post his birthday match days or, like last year when he isn't competing on the day, presenting a cake and gifting a scooter in a ceremony at the venue.

On Saturday, Roland Garros tweeted a video putting together pictures of all those moments over the years and signing off with, “We miss you!”. Nadal, minutes after posting an update about a surgery on his injured hip that kept him away from his year’s French Open, retweeted it. He wrote in French, “Vous me manquez trop”, translated to “I miss you very much”.