Give me more stories, Javi!

Occasionally, Javi Dale sends me a WhatsApp or an email, or even seeks me out in the newsroom, and every time that happens, it makes me happy because his message or visit comes with a gift.

Javi Dale gives me stories.

Sometimes he talks to me about basketball. He tells me the story of an NBA player who was a great decades ago and is now a broken, debt-ridden toy. He suggests I give the subject a new spin, and I listen and obey: when he bets on something, Javi Dale is right on target.

Yesterday he talked to me about tennis.

Through a timely email, he recommended that I investigate Oliver Tarvet.

The idea came to me like a glove, because today, more or less as you read this column, Oliver Tarvet will be facing off against Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon.

Reader, let's take off our masks.

We're not Javi Dale. And that's why, until now, neither you nor I had heard of Tarvet, and with good reason: at 21, the man is barely the 733rd in the world. And generally, the mainstream media doesn't delve into those depths.

Javi Dale reveals to me that Oliver Tarvet has turned down €114,000 to face Alcaraz today.

From a purely statistical perspective, Tarvet would be just another Stakhanovite tennis player, a sufferer with little chance. Another victim hypothetically torn to pieces by Alcaraz, the tennis player cannibal, the Murcian who devours Dzumhur, Marozsan, or Rinderknech.

Read also Alcaraz, this is suffering Sergio Heredia

Another thing is his story, that of Oliver Tarvet, I mean.

These days, his amateur status is working against him: to play in the second round of Wimbledon, Oliver Tarvet had to give up 114,000 euros, money he had earned with his sweat, effort, and tears after winning four matches, three in the qualifying round and the first round of the main draw, this one against Leandro Riedi by a triple 6-4.

It turns out that Oliver Tarvet, who is British and plays at home, blessed with an invitation to the tournament, is studying Communications and Marketing at the University of San Diego and competes in the NCAA, and the NCAA, the umbrella organization for amateur athletes, prohibits its competitors from earning more than 8,400 euros a year: anything above that must be returned.

So these days, Tarvet is enjoying fame but not money, a circumstance that must concern him very little because, presumably, he plays tennis to be happy, not to become a millionaire. After all, that's what many of us mere mortals do, most of us: we work to be happy, not for money, right?