Nuno Borges celebrates surprise win, welcomes increased attention in national tennis

Tennis player Nuno Borges spoke on Monday about how he unexpectedly won the first ATP tournament of his career against Rafael Nadal and about the “trouble” he got into because of the attention he received, although he deserved it for Portuguese tennis.

“All this attention is still a bit strange to me. When I started playing there, I knew I would get into this kind of trouble. I have never attracted attention to myself, I have always kept to myself, but this great recognition has been given to national tennis, which deserves a different level of attention than Portuguese tennis,” he stressed.

Upon arrival at Lisbon airport from the Danish capital Copenhagen, which is about 150 kilometers from the Swedish city of Bastad where the tournament was held, the tennis player from Maia expressed to reporters “a huge relief after the tension that had built up in the game.”

“It all happened so fast and I feel a huge sense of relief. I’m very happy, the emotions are starting to overwhelm me and I understand what’s going on. I’ve been able to deal with moments that aren’t as big as this one, but they’ve helped me learn how to deal with it, sometimes it’s crazy and yesterday was an example of that,” he stressed.

Nuno Borges won the final 6-3, 6-2 after one hour and 27 minutes, defeating the “legendary” Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal, 38, winner of 22 Grand Slam titles, several times world number one and hitherto considered the “king of clay”.

“I remember warming up with him and thinking that I’ve seen him on TV playing so much and now I’m actually playing against him. It was all very surreal and I just tried to enjoy the full stadium as much as possible, in a great tournament and the final against Nadal, the best player of all time on clay, went well,” he said.

After a grass court season that didn’t go as expected, Nuno Borges didn’t expect to reach the final of the competition, and never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that his first victory on the track would come against one of the best tennis players in the world of the sport.

“At that stage, Nadal was no longer so active and it was already a rarity to meet him at any tournament. less against Nadal,” he said.

Now the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris are approaching, where he is expected to travel this Tuesday, he said after withdrawing from the ATP tournament in Kitzbühel, Austria, this week, but refrained from putting too much hope in himself.

“People may have higher expectations, but tennis tells us every day that nothing is guaranteed and every day we have to prove it. The truth is that I am leaving here with the title and people are looking at it a lot, but the process was the same, I did nothing different and there were no secrets. Just like I finished last week without a very high spirit, I am leaving here completely different, but with my feet on the ground and I am going to have to fight for all the games,” he assured.

At 25, Nuno Borges has the best result of his career in the world rankings, rising to 42nd place, becoming only the second Portuguese tennis player to win the competition on the main international stage, after João Sousa, who won four times (Kuala Lumpur in 2013, Valencia in 2015, Estoril in 2018 and Pune in 2022).