It’s over. Rafa Nadal’s spectacular career has come to an end after Spain was eliminated by the Netherlands in the Davis Cup quarterfinals. He himself said that he did not believe in happy movie endings. The 38-year-old from the Balearic Islands could not fulfill his dream of retiring with a smile and did so with the sadness that accompanied Spain’s elimination. However, he assured that He retires from tennis “with the peace of mind” of having left “a legacy not only sporting, but also personal. And so it is. His lordship and greatness has been recognized at home, one of the corners of the world to which he reached with his racket.
The world surrendered yesterday at the feet of an eternal legend who, as his friend Roger Federer recalled in an emotional letter, took this sport to a “level that few could imagine.” Rafa Nadal He can win or he can lose but above all he is a gentleman on and off the court. And yesterday he demonstrated it again by falling with honor and showing his love for Spain and a sport that has given him everything.
But the Balearic Islands are much more than that. He has been an illusion and hope for many and has won the heart of the world not only for his game but for his values as a person.something that is scarce today in an elite sport dominated by egos.
The testimony of Reem Abullei
And proof of its greatness is the testimony of an Egyptian journalist in The National News before which it is impossible not to get excited. It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful story you can read today and the most tangible proof of its immense legacy. Reem Abulleil is an Egyptian journalist and multimedia editor with more than 14 years of experience in sports information and her testimony is going around the world.
“I started watching Nadal on television with my father when the Spaniard was just a teenager. We were united by his tenacity, his unique style, his spinning forehand and his ability to achieve impossible comebacks. When my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, watching Nadal with him became my favorite activity. “He could ignore all the changes his brain was undergoing and simply enjoy our common love for the sport and our admiration for his fiercest competitor,” he begins.
“He never forgot Nadal’s name”
“In time, my father began to forget all the intricacies of the tennis scoring system (something he himself had taught me when I was young) and would repeatedly ask me to explain it to him during matches, a development I found difficult to accept, except when I saw the master of acceptance. He began to forget the meaning of terms like ‘deuce’ and ‘tiebreak’, but curiously he never forgot the name ‘Nadal’. He stopped understanding what I did, but for a long time he remembered that it had something to do with tennis, and the first question he always asked me was: “Did Nadal win?” he adds in a moving open letter.
The journalist also remembers the annual tradition she followed with her father and his regret for never having transferred his father’s admiration to the Balearic Islands. “He was forgetting a lot of vocabulary, which made it difficult for him to form sentences, but the name “Nadal” was somehow still hidden somewhere miraculously accessible in his mind. For a few years we had an annual tradition: attending the Mubadala World Tennis Championships at Christmas in Abu Dhabi. My parents were traveling from Cairo and we all went to the tennis match together. I would sneak away from the press seats and sit next to my father to watch Nadal, who never missed that exhibition tournament during the years my father was there. My dad couldn’t be happier. After the games, I told him that I had to run to the press room to talk to Nadal and he always told me the same thing: “Tell him I send him my regards.” I explained to my father that this is not something a journalist should do, but he kept asking me to do it anyway. “I’m a little sad that I never did it.”
The Abulleil family is a Nadal family
Reem’s father He passed away 13 months ago and in his last years he was not able to communicate much. “We would watch a tennis match from time to time, just a few matches, months apart, and all I wanted was for him to ask me about Nadal. Instead, it was my mother who asked me. And so did my sisters. And everyone around me. What started as a bonding experience between two, became a community of appreciation for a sports legend. In Cairo, you belong to an Ahly family or a Zamalek family. The Abulleil family is a Nadal family.” he adds to give the dimension of what the Balearic Islands have meant in their lives.
“When I think about the legacy of Spanish, I think about the joy it brought to my father, to our family and to many other families around the world. In my opinion, that means nothing. That’s all” concludes.
The article by this Egyptian communicator has driven Nadal’s followers crazy and has undoubtedly become the best explanation of what a legend in capital letters means to which you can only say: “Eternally, thank you!”
