Cristóforo Jesús Paz, the 93-year-old tennis player who ran out of rivals and trains with 80-something "kids".
He took up tennis at the age of 45 and has never stopped since. He reached fourth in the world ranking in his category and in September he plans to play in a +90 tournament in Mallorca for his children to see him.
Many people who watch Paz play ask him the recipe for such vitality. He is not thinking about retirement and trains as usual at Club Núñez.
The heat wave gives no respite and doing any outdoor activity weighs like a sentence. It's five o'clock in the afternoon, the thermometer reads 33° and the sun has been relentlessly beating down for some time now. At the Club Atlético Comercio, in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Núñez, a group of teenagers between 15 and 20 years of age are training against the fronton that is just past the tennis courts. The youngsters, understandably overwhelmed, stop to hydrate themselves. But the sound of the racket hitting the ball does not stop echoing. Alone against the fronton, a man unleashes his drive with the wall as an implacable opponent. The yellow plush ball always comes back. And Cristóforo Jesús Paz, focused and 93 years old, keeps up the pace. "I needed to loosen up," he tells Clarín before recounting his incredible life story.
The first question, the million-dollar question, is how he continues to play tennis. It's not for everyone, of course. And Paz, in a slow and patient tone of voice, reveals that many people who see him on the clay are amazed by his vitality and insistently ask him what his recipe is. But he has no answers: "Every now and then they say to me: 'How do you do it? It's something that comes from inside me. I don't care about anything, not at all. I think it's because of the Indian blood," he boasts with a smile as he enjoys a cup of coffee with Estela, his wife.
Paz grew up in an environment of absolute humility in a village near the capital of Santiago del Estero. He lived in a small house with his parents and his eight siblings, with whom he worked from a very young age in different rural activities. They were axemen, made charcoal and also took care of animals. And he insists that his vitality and the possibility of continuing to enjoy tennis as a protagonist may have something to do with his ancestry. "What happens is that I am the son of an aborigine. My father was raised by the Chiriguanos (also known as Ava Guaraníes, who lived for a long time in the north of Argentina).
At the age of 20 he arrived in Buenos Aires and started a new life there. He first worked in an oil company and later joined Gas del Estado. Football, like most people, was his favourite sport. However, it was not until he was 45 years old, at the invitation of some colleagues in the office, that he got to know tennis. And he never gave it up again.
In that sense, he recognises that over the years he has become a little more health conscious. "We have been taking care of ourselves for a while now. But when we were young we ate normally. Maybe now, after the nutritional change, since we're older, we've started to eat less meat, more fruit, more vegetables? He eats normally. Although on Saturdays he gets together with the boys and they all eat more than usual", Estela challenges him before the complicit gaze of her partner. They have two children - Marcelo, a lawyer, and Patricia, a university professor - who currently live in the United States.
In recent years, however, Paz has slowed down a little from the pace she had when she was in her 80s. "Lately I only play in the morning on weekends. I used to play in the morning, in the afternoon, at any time. I could play two or three times in the morning when I missed someone. I didn't get tired", he confesses without showing traces of having spent a long time hitting the ball hard against the fronton under the sun and with his particular racket - he has a different hoop and that allows him to have more power.
Estela knows what tennis means in Jesús' life and is aware of what it generates in his state of mind. He found tennis what makes him happy, because nowadays it is what keeps him connected, apart from his family. With tennis he has something that is his alone. So much so that at the age of 93 he is hooked on life. He loves coming to the club," says the woman, a 77-year-old retiree who worked as a coordinator in expressive gymnastics and yoga.
And Paz nods: "My family knows that I can do everything in tennis that I can't do in everyday life. Besides, there are a lot of people who love me, who help me and respect me. I respect them all, and most of all my opponents. It is important to have respect for them even if you are superior. You don't have to get angry. Tennis gives me all the happiness. Outside the court I can do things but I enter the court and I feel complete".
Watch out. Sport is not just a pastime. Paz is also a great player, a competitor who participates in the Senior Circuit of the Argentine Tennis Association and also dares to try his luck in tournaments abroad. In 2020, at the age of 90, he reached his best position in the ranking of the International Tennis Federation. He was fourth in his category. Currently, he is in 22nd place among the +90, although he has practically no rivals. "Now I play with the 85s because there are no more 90s," he laments.
With the same rhythm with which she was hitting the ball before the interview, Paz tells us some of her worries. In the last few months he started to feel his first pains and a bit of fatigue in his body. She says it is the result of a natural loss of muscle mass. Perhaps it is one of the many collateral damages of the damned pandemic. The coronavirus has also kept him from travelling and seeing his children more often. "I'm not one for injuries. It's only now. I don't know what's wrong with my calf that hurts. Lately I've been feeling pains and I'm getting more tired. This has been going on for a year now. But it's the right thing to do," he explains, still in awe and with a protection, a kind of thigh brace, on the affected area.
And he doubles the bet: "I never thought of quitting. If I can't compete, I still have someone who is always waiting for me - and he looks at the pediment. I was thinking of a person who would give me food that would allow me to recover a little better. I want to play more. In August or September there is a +90 in Mallorca, Spain. I'm thinking and I want to go, although I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it.
Cross-posting: Serey.
Source images: Clarin Deportes.