WIMBLEDON, England -- Next Sunday evening might just bring the All England Club a black swan, a white peacock, a double rainbow, a pink diamond, a July snow, a clean congressman.
When they line up the ball kids and bring out the royals and hand out the men's singles trophy, a male Spaniard might just take it and hold it aloft, in which case 22-year-old Rafael Nadal from the island of Mallorca would've forged a rarity and epitomized a profound U-turn in Wimbledon history.
Since a grand sportsman named Manuel Santana volleyed a Dennis Ralston pass attempt into the open court to clinch the 1966 title, 68 Spanish men have graced Wimbledon singles draws, holding 238 slots. They've won no titles, but it's more the texture of their dearth that makes their path distinctive.
Especially between 1973 and 2001, as 136 Spanish entries scraped to reach four fourth rounds and zero quarterfinals across three decades, the Spanish approach to Wimbledon tilted toward what you might call "cavalier."
"I think that's an appropriate word to describe it," said Patrick McEnroe, the American who played Wimbledon five times, 1991 to '95.
"They used to go to London for nothing," Santana said of his countrymen by telephone from Spain.
"The mentality was to rest after the French Open and then come to Wimbledon and not really prepare," said Albert Costa, who played Wimbledon five scattered times, during a span from 1994 to 2004.
Reared on clay and its slow, high bounces, they reeled on grass and its fast, low bounces. Some cheerily wore out the line, "Grass is for cows." Sometimes you could spot Parisian red dirt still caked on their sneakers, recalls Luke Jensen, who played 10 Wimbledons in doubles between 1988 and 1998 and added, "And sometimes they didn't have white clothes, would have to buy them in the pro shop."
Some who could have played didn't, as in 1993, when we learned the French Open champion wouldn't play, his mother having said he needed rest. With 85 first-round exits between 1973 and 2001, they often came to play a round, get a smallish paycheck and skedaddle to Heathrow. None asked Santana for advice, he said, and he's too gentlemanly to bark it unsolicited.
If you drew a Spanish player, as McEnroe did in 1991, "You were feeling really good about your chances," he said. "That was a really good draw . . . It certainly was understood in the locker room that they were up against it."
