Robredo will retire in Barcelona: “I am a warrior of the ancient age”

Sant Sadurní d'Anoia (Barcelona), 24 Mar Spaniard Tommy Robredo confirmed this Thursday that the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell-Trophy Conde de Godó, which will be held from 18 to 24 April at the RCT Barcelona facilities, will be his last tournament as a professional tennis player. “I am a warrior of the ancient age”, was defined in his farewell Robredo, who at 39 years old is ranked 343 in the ATP classification, very far from the top-ten he went through in 2006 and 2007. The tennis player from Girona announced the date of his retirement in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, in the Vilarnau cellars, a company that has signed a contract to be the official cava of Godó for the next four years and for which Robredo is ambassador. And he did so after playing, between vines, with a fellow generation who was also retired like David Ferrer, with whom he fought tough battles over clay and who is precisely now the director of the tournament who will see him hang his racket in three weeks. After going through the shower and getting dressed again on the street, Robredo justified in an interview with EFE the reason for his long career (he made his debut in 1998 on the circuit). “I have taken great care of myself and, as far as possible, the injuries have respected me quite a lot,” he said. Three-time Davis Cup champion with Spain and winner of twelve ATP titles, the former number 5 in the world ranking, he has been going through Challengers tournaments for six seasons, something unusual for a tennis player with his record. “If I have been able to continue playing, it's because I really like tennis and it's not hard for me to wake up in the morning and go to training. Until the day they locked us up (due to the pandemic) I did it one hundred percent,” he explained. Robredo was clear that, until he found something that filled him “more than tennis”, he was not going to leave him. “And now I've found it,” he revealed. And it is that, during the confinement, in which he moved with his family from Sant Cugat del Vallès to Olot, he discovered it. “Being at home, with my family and my daughter. Now I know that I don't want to miss the first time he walks or says dad,” explained the player about his little Alexia. Little by little, Robredo has been “accepting” that neither physically nor mentally he is “as he was before” and that “you are gaining years and losing ranking” until he realizes that it is time to go home. And what better than retiring at RCT Barcelona, in the tournament he won in 2004 and of which he was a finalist in 2006. And if possible, on track 1 where, often away from the spotlight, he starred in mythical comebacks in the past. “I, a central court like that of the US Open, don't like it. I prefer a smaller, louder track, with people around. And at Godó I always asked to play in 1, in front of my family and friends, where you hear familiar voices cheering,” he recalled. He could have retired at last year's Godó, but the same pandemic that discovered him another life besides tennis also delayed his farewell. “I didn't want to leave playing with the almost empty stands,” he said. CHIEF gmh/og