Orantes: de la barraca al podio

The life of Manuel Orantes is an adventure novel with a message included. The plot focuses on a protagonist who lives his childhood in one of the most disadvantaged places in Barcelona in the sixties, a self-built barracks in Carmel, and who finds in tennis a social lift and a system of values. A story that is also a hymn to self-improvement and that portrays the personality of an elite athlete who received the title of artist for his peculiar game. From the hand of Félix Sentmenat, we will approach the tennis player and the person, who will tell us about his memories, his doubts, his physical problems, his successes and his defeats, all framed in an unrepeatable time in which the country woke up from a long dictatorship. Manuel Orantes, a good person as well as a good tennis player, arouses unanimous praise around him. The testimonies collected here, among which legends of his time such as Borg, Connors, Vilas, Nastase or Stan Smith stand out, certify it. Only his modesty explains why a book like this has not appeared before.