Rafael Nadal will end his legendary career as a tennis player at the end of the Davis Cup final that he will play with Spain in Malaga in November, the player himself announced in an emotional video released Thursday through social networks.
Just two days after the announcement of the retirement of footballer Andres Iniesta, another of the great myths of Spanish sport in the last two decades, it is now the turn of the 38-year-old tennis player, winner of 22 Grand Slam titles, including 14 Roland Garros (record), 92 ATP titles, five Davis Cup, Olympic gold in both individual (2008) and doubles (2016)… ultimately, one of the best races in the history of tennis and sport in general.
“Everything in life has a beginning and an end and I think it’s the right time to put an end to a long and much more successful career than I could ever have imagined,” said an excited Nadal in a video alongside the message “Mill thanks to everyone,” written in a dozen languages.
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Nadal will close his career in the Final 8 of the Davis Cup that will be played in Malaga, in southern Spain, from 19 to 24 November “I am very excited that my last tournament will be the Davis Cup, representing my country,” he said.
I think it’s like closing the circle because one of my first great joys as a professional tennis player was the final in Seville in 2004 – which Spain won, the first of the five salads that Nadal has in his palmares (2004, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2019).
Nadal’s entire trajectory has been marked not only by successes but also by injuries, especially in recent years, in which he has barely been able to compete.
The reality is that it’s been a difficult few years, especially the last two. “I haven’t been able to play without limitations,” the tennis player admitted with the record of victories at Roland Garros (14).
All this has led him to withdraw. It is a decision that is obviously difficult and has taken me a long time to make.
“I feel super fortunate for all the things I have been able to live,” he added despite being the undisputed king of the beaten land.
Just two years after the farewell of the Swiss Roger Federer, tennis will be orphaned by another of its great legends, leaving Serbian Novak Djokovic (37 years old) as the only surviving member of the “Big 3” that led this sport to its highest levels of popularity and competition.
What a Rafa race. “It has been an immense honor,” Federer said minutes after Nadal made his announcement.
Born on June 3, 1986, in Manacor, in Mallorca, Rafa left football at a young age – a swearing-in in which his uncle Miguel Angel Nadal came to play in Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona – for tennis, where he built his career next to another of his uncles, Toni.
Raised on the beaten ground and thanks to an out-of-the-ordinary physical power, it was on this surface where he built much of his legend. He won 14 Roland Garros (from 2005 to 2008, from 2010 to 2014, from 2017 to 2020, and in 2022) in 19 participations, with 112 matches won, four defeats, and an abandonment.
The second player in history with the most trophies on Parisian land, the Swedish Bjorn Borg, stayed in six titles, and the tennis player with the most titles in the same Grand Slam, Djokovic, adds 10 in Australia.
But Nadal was not only a beaten-ground player, but he achieved success on all surfaces. Interestingly, it was on Wimbledon grass that the Spaniard signed one of the best matches in the history of this sport, when after the finals lost in 2006 and 2007 to Federer, he dethroned the Swiss in 2008, ending a streak of five consecutive titles.
It was the first of his two titles in London, he also won the Australian Open twice and four times the US Open.
Injuries as a great enemy
Nadal’s career was also marked by his recurring physical problems. Elb, foot, back, abs… For years, starting with the fracture in his left foot in 2004, a year after debuting on the professional circuit, the Spaniard had one of his great enemies in the wounds but always knew how to recover to the top.
In 2022, after winning his 14th title in Paris infiltrated to withstand the pains in his foot due to Mueller–Weiss syndrome, a rare disease that affects a bone in his left foot and causes chronic pain, he underwent a new treatment that allowed him to continue playing, but various lesions prevented him from playing regularly since then.
This season he barely played a handful of matches, with a first-round defeat against German Alexander Zverev, in what will already be forever his last Roland Garros, and the elimination in the second round against Djokovic at the Paris Games, his last appearance so far on a court.
In Malaga, he will have the opportunity to say a definitive goodbye to his audience.
