Skip to Content
Newsletter

Paris Masters: Running on Empty

3:22 PM EDT on October 30, 2020

[vc_empty_space height="5px"]

By Giri Nathan

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]Fresh off his 13th French Open, Rafael Nadal has returned to Paris, but Paris will not be welcoming him back—not in the flesh, at least. The tour has gone indoors, which is not ideal from the perspective of avoiding a virus transmitted by aerosolized respiratory droplets, but that’s what this season’s zombie schedule says. And the Paris Masters have shown that with enough persistence, professional sports can still be squeezed into a world that otherwise cannot afford any congregation of people at scale. I know everyone is doing their best to perform caution and thoughtfulness, but I can’t imagine that these improv-style logistics are pleasant to be a part of, and every time it happens, it gets easier and easier to sympathize with the feeling David Goffin described in September: “We are constantly concerned, before every tournament, we are in the expectation.... I’m running empty. I have no energy.”