Rafael Nadal announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the season after “coming full circle” in a tennis career that earned him 22 Grand Slam titles, global respect and inspired epic and iconic rivalries with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
“I’m retiring from professional tennis. The reality is that it’s been a difficult few years, especially the last two,” Nadal said in a video on social media.
“It’s obviously a difficult decision, one that took me a while to make. But in this life, everything has a beginning and an end.”
The 38-year-old Spaniard is set to complete his two decades as a professional with 92 titles and a prize money of $135 million, undoubtedly one of the greatest tennis players in history.
“What a career, Rafa! I always hoped this day would never come,” said Federer, a 20-time Grand Slam champion.
“Thank you for the unforgettable memories and all your incredible achievements in the game we love. It was an absolute honor!”
Djokovic, the men’s record holder of 24 Grand Slams, said Nadal’s legacy “will live forever”.
“Your tenacity, your dedication and your fighting spirit will be taught for decades,” the Serbian said.
Current world number one Jannik Sinner said Nadal’s departure from the sport was “difficult news for the tennis world”, but it comes after another injury-plagued season.
After being limited to four matches in 2023, Nadal returned from a year in January but missed the Australian Open due to a torn muscle.
He made his comeback at Barcelona in April and reached his first final in two years on the clay court of Bastad in July.
Nadal, however, lost in the first round of the French Open to Alexander Zverev, bidding an emotional farewell to Grand Slam tennis, before being swept aside on the same Philippe Chatrier court by Djokovic at the Olympics.
His last appearance was a doubles quarter-final defeat alongside Carlos Alcaraz at the Paris Games.
“Thank you so much for being an example at every level, your legacy is incomparable,” Alcaraz wrote on social media.
Nadal’s farewell will take place next month in Malaga, teaming up with Alcaraz once again in the Spanish team as he bids for a sixth Davis Cup triumph.
“I think this is the appropriate time to end a career that has been long and much more successful than I could have ever imagined,” said Nadal, whose world ranking collapsed at the 158th place.
“But I’m very happy that my last tournament is the Davis Cup final and I’m representing my country. I think I’ve come full circle.”
Nadal has dominated the French Open where he has won 14 of his majors, his first coming just days after his 19th birthday in 2005, his last in 2022 briefly making him the oldest champion at the event before Djokovic breaks the record.
On the famous crushed brick of Roland-Garros, he lost only five times in 118 matches at Roland-Garros and the Olympic Games.
He is also a four-time US Open champion and a two-time Australian Open winner, with his first triumph coming in 2009; his second 13 years later.
Nadal also won Wimbledon twice, in 2008 and 2010, although grass seemed to be the surface most likely to reveal the flaws in his game.
His five-set victory over Federer in the 2008 championship match, which ended in near darkness at the All England Club, is widely considered the greatest Grand Slam final ever contested.
Nadal won a career Golden Slam when he won Olympic gold in 2008.
He has been world number one at the end of the year five times and never left the top 10 from 2005 until March last year.
In total, he spent 209 weeks in the top spot and won at least one title every year between 2004 and 2022.
In his long rivalry with close friend Federer, who retired two years ago, he enjoyed a 24-16 advantage. Nadal surpassed Federer’s mark of 20 major tournaments in Australia in 2022.
He and Djokovic have met 60 times, with the Serb ahead by two.
Despite his record-breaking career, Nadal has been plagued by injuries, a painful consequence of his brutal, action-packed hitting style.
– “Courage, perseverance” –
Ankle, wrist, knee, elbow and abdominal problems caused him to sit out 18 Grand Slam tournaments and retire mid-event on five occasions.
Nadal has suffered for years from a foot problem called Muller-Weiss syndrome, a rare, degenerative disease affecting the bones of the feet.
At Roland Garros 2022, he admitted his title win would have been impossible without daily injections of painkillers into his foot.
An abdominal strain forced him to leave Wimbledon where he had reached the semi-finals.
He then suffered a hip injury at the Australian Open the following January when he crashed out in the second round.
Nadal may have felt the writing was on the wall at the 2022 Laver Cup in London when he played alongside Federer in the Swiss star’s final tournament.
The two men cried and even shook hands at the end of the Federer era.
“Effort, courage, constancy, perseverance are values that society does not take for granted and he is a clear representative of them,” Domingo Bonnin, a 60-year-old fisherman, told AFP on the the island of Majorca where Nadal lived. all his life.
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