Davis Cup – Retirement – Rafael Nadal feels ready for the future: “I have always been happy without tennis”

On the eve of the start of the final phase of the Davis Cup, which will also be the truly final phase of his career, Rafael Nadal would have happily talked about the Silver Salad Bowl and nothing else. But there was talk of almost everything except the “Davis” itself. He knows it, even if he keeps insisting that the issue is elsewhere, it is mainly about him. Of his farewells. Of his retirement, now imminent.

We feel he is in agreement with his decision and calm about it. “I could last another year, but for what? To do a farewell tour tournament by tournament? I don’t have this ego“, he said on Monday during the Spanish team’s press conference, detailing the process that brought him to the moment where he wanted to announce his big departure:

“What’s pushing me to quit tennis now is that I feel like I can’t be competitive anymore. I didn’t end up getting tired of tennis like others. I still love tennis. If I could, I would continue to play, but it is impossible for me to train with the regularity necessary to compete at a level that compensates for the daily efforts. I am no longer competitive enough and I no longer take the necessary daily pleasure. Today, there is no longer any sense in wanting to continue knowing perfectly well that I no longer have any chance of returning to the level I want. Because my body no longer allows me.”

What is striking about Nadal at the time of the big leap is the clarity of his mind. Including his certainties as to what awaits him from next week. His life will be different, he knows it very well, but he has no apprehensions on this subject. “I’m not the type of guy to say ‘No, I won’t change anything’, because to me that would be arrogant, he said. But I leave this professional life with calm and with the satisfaction of having given the best of myself almost at every moment..”

If you listen to him carefully, it’s more the adrenaline that will fail him than the tennis itself. “What will I miss most about no longer being a professional tennis player? I would probably say the competitive feeling, going on the pitch and seeing the fans, the atmosphere when you play big matches, confides ‘Rafa’. The adrenaline you feel before, at the end and during the match. This kind of feeling, adrenaline, is hard to find outside of professional sport.”

But don’t cry for him, don’t worry. Retired at 38, Rafael Nadal will know how to occupy himself in the coming decades. “I don’t worry about the next chapter of my life, promises the Majorcan. I have always been happy without tennis and I have had many times in my life where I was unable to play tennis due to my injuries..”

Neither fear nor regrets, this is Nadal’s double credo as he bows out. “I’ve come to this point in my life where I have to move on, and I’m at peace because I gave everything I had into what I did. I have played and practiced this sport since the age of seven but at that age I started to work more and more with passion, with love, and with the determination to be the best I could be..” We can say quite calmly that, on this point, he did not succeed too badly.