Rafael Nadal will retire from tennis after the Davis Cup final in November
Rafael Nadal has confirmed he will retire from professional tennis after the Davis Cup final in Malaga, Spain in November.
“The reality is that it has been a difficult few years, especially the last two. I don’t think I was able to play without limitations,” the 38-year-old said in a video released on Thursday, October 10.
“It is of course a difficult decision, which took me some time. But in this life everything has a beginning and an end.”
Nadal won his first professional match at the age of 15 at a Challenger tournament in Seville and has gone on to win 22 Grand Slam titles, including 14 French Opens. He ends his career with a record of 112-4 at Roland Garros, where he lost his final Grand Slam match to Alexander Zverev earlier this year.
In 2008, he broke Roger Federer’s streak of five Wimbledon titles in a final that lasted 4 hours and 48 minutes, in the first team in a 15-year rivalry between the two players at the top of the men’s game. In addition to Novak Djokovic, Nadal and Federer formed the ‘Big Three’, who have won 66 Grand Slam titles together to date. Federer retired in 2022 at the age of 41, but Djokovic is still an active player.
While the 2008 Wimbledon final is regularly regarded as one of the greatest matches of all time, Nadal and Djokovic’s 5-hour, 53-minute Australian Open final in 2012, which Djokovic won in five sets, and their semi-final in 2009 in Madrid, which Nadal won in three, at least stand next to it.
Together with those two, Nadal will leave tennis as one of the greatest male players of all time.
“I feel super, super happy with all the things I have experienced. “I would like to thank the tennis industry and everyone in the sport: my long-term colleagues, especially my great rivals,” the Spaniard added.
“I think this is the right time to end a career that has been long and much more successful than I could ever have imagined.”
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Nadal won his last Grand Slam title at the 2022 French Open, essentially playing on one foot after numbing his left side with injections to compete. He subsequently suffered an abdominal tear at Wimbledon 2022 and another injury at the 2023 Australian Open. His last singles appearance was at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, where he lost in a lopsided straight-sets defeat to Olympic-winning Djokovic would win gold. Nadal himself won a gold medal in singles at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
It is expected that he will play during the Davis Cup together with fellow countryman Carlos Alcaraz, who at the age of 21 is already a four-time Grand Slam champion.
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Nadal’s retirement announcement isn’t a huge surprise, but it still feels seismic.
Men’s tennis without Nadal just doesn’t seem right. For almost twenty years he has been a dominant, unique figure within the sport; a true one-off whose reputation and admiration go far beyond just tennis. You only have to look at the outpouring of emotion from sporting figures, especially in football and especially in Spain, to see his global impact.
It wasn’t just about what he achieved on the pitch, but also about how he achieved it. Somehow he first transformed the perception of clay players and then destroyed them.
Nadal was initially seen as such when he won the French Open in 2005, but developed one of the best all-court games in the history of the sport and won 22 Grand Slam titles, emerging as one of the best volleyers in the sport. gentleman’s game towards the end of his career. In addition to those fourteen French Open titles, he won two Wimbledon titles, two Australian Open titles and four US Open titles.
His rivalry with Roger Federer defined tennis in the 2000s and brought the sport to a wider audience than ever before. The 2008 Wimbledon final won by Nadal is considered by many to be the greatest match ever played, but his 2012 Australian Open final against Novak Djokovic and their three ATP clay court matches in 2009 (in Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome) rise up in the midst of many more.
The 2008 Wimbledon final marked the moment when Rafael Nadal emerged as an existential threat to Roger Federer. (Lewis Whyld/Pool via Getty Images)
For many, Nadal is the greatest player and competitor to ever play the men’s game, with undoubtedly the most ferocious and effective forehand the sport has ever seen.
The nature of sports is that stars are constantly moving, and of course we rationally knew that this day was always bound to come. And yet, somehow, Nadal felt immortal, able to continually withstand serious injuries to return to the top of the sport and win one of its biggest prizes, the 2022 French Open, with one functional foot to win.
At the age of 38, he has had one too many injuries and it is time to say goodbye. But the legacy he leaves will never be forgotten.
(Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
