The Mutua Madrid Open yesterday premiered a trophy on its 20th anniversary. The new, named Arete, It replaces what was called Ion Tiriac in honor of the former tennis player and former owner of the tournament, which was a spiral tower made with gold and diamond rackets. It has been designed by the artist David Rodríguez Caballero (Palencia, 52 years old). The sculpture, when rotated, offers gradations of color that evoke the clay of the tennis court and its lines refer to the precision, cleanliness and neatness that tennis players manifest in their own game.
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And there is a story behind it. “When I was invited to do the project, coincided with Nadal’s victory at the Australian Open. That was quite an example and staging of what tennis can be and of the values of sport: Will, intelligence, strategy, intuition… In the end, it’s about excellence, about achieving victory despite having all the factors against you, as he had. That’s where everything comes from, the term excellence comes from the Greek, ancient areté, the classic concept used by the Greeks to describe good work. It goes for the values of overcoming and at that moment Nadal was an icon”, tells AS Rodríguez Caballero, who designed the medals of the 2018 Women’s Basketball World Cup.