We all have disabilities

It's not the strongest of the species that survives. Nor is it the most intelligent that survives. It's the one that best adapts to change.

Charles Darwin

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Before interviewing Daniel Caverzaschi (31), I spend a while watching him play tennis.

Daniel Caverzaschi is left-handed and has the upper body of a bull, and he maneuvers his wheelchair at breakneck speed. He hits a forehand and roars as he hits it, and the ball twists, topspinned, over the net and falls violently on the other side, and before Samu, the sparring partner, can return it to him, Caverzaschi has already spun like a windmill, milliseconds ahead, moving toward where the ball will probably go.

"That's it! Come on, the session's almost over, we have to suffer!" shouts Àlex Gaspa, his coach at the Emilio Sánchez Academy, as Caverzaschi achieves the impossible, leaving me in awe.

Photographer Àlex Garcia is fascinated by the marks the chair leaves on the ground. They are asymmetrical curves, wide or tight, that overlap each other, and so, when the training is over, he looks for that image:

–Stand in the center of the track, on the markings –he tells Caverzaschi.

And we all think it's a wonderful proposal, and that's the picture.

(...)

Right now, Daniel Caverzaschi (currently ranked seventh in the ITF singles and third in doubles) is in Rome, competing in the Masters 1000 in adapted tennis, and next week he will play at the Real Club de Polo, the venue for the TRAM Barcelona Open. But before getting involved in those projects, we find a quiet space and, in the spring sun, we talk:

"We all have disabilities, are you aware of that?" he asks me.

"Well, look," I confess, "I'm deaf in my right ear. I was born with that condition. It barely affects me on a daily basis, and I barely take it into account. I'll tell you I'm happy with my life, but the dysfunction is still there."

Thanks to my parents, I learned to laugh at myself: I took selfies of my one foot and posted them on social media. Daniel Caverzaschi Tennis Player

Daniel Caverzaschi stares at me, his mouth agape: my disability isn't his, but it proves that we all, in some way, have our own unique qualities.

(Daniel Caverzaschi was born with a range of leg malformations. He was a baby when his right leg had to be amputated.)

“See what I mean?” he says. “A few years ago, my friend Felipe Quintela and I founded VLP (Vale La Pierna). It’s a marketing, events, and representation agency for athletes with disabilities, and then came the podcast, Conversaciones que valen la piernas (Conversations Worth a Leg ). There, we talk about disabilities. And you know what?

-Tell me.

–I invited Irene Villa. We didn't talk about disabilities with her, but rather about her tendency toward perfectionism or self-demand. But all the guests acknowledge their disabilities. Non-disabled athletes, for example, declare themselves impatient. 15% of society has a recognized disability: there are a lot of us. And yet, prejudices persist. We keep saying, 'poor blind person.' And that's not the case: the mind adapts to everything.

–And how do you adapt?

–With a lot of humor, even dark humor. It's a tool my mother (Asun) and my father (Jorge), who died when I was twenty, gave me.

-Humor?

–Thanks to them, I learned to laugh at myself. Do you remember that time when everyone took pictures of their feet and posted them on social media?

–I remember her...

–I used to take selfies too, and I'd show my only foot in them... When I was thirteen, a kid at school called me, 'You fucking lame.' I told my dad. Instead of going to the principal, he said, 'You handle it.' The kid and I had our exchange. Maybe it wasn't the best solution, but it worked. No one bothered me again.

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–And tennis?

–First, I skied, played basketball, played golf, and was a soccer player. I played with the other kids, using my prosthesis. I was the goalie. Tennis won out in the end: I furthered my studies at the University of Warwick (Coventry), where I graduated in Economics, and I turned professional in 2016, when Emilio Sánchez Vicario and Kiko Martí sponsored me.

(In Paris 2024, he won Paralympic bronze in doubles alongside Martín de la Puente. Today, he is sponsored by Arrow, Honda, Solunion, and Babolat: go see him at the Polo).