Between tears of emotion for the farewell we find from Serena Williams to Pau Gasol or Sergio Ramos. An endless list in which Federer and Djokovic could not be missing. And it is not surprising that the question arises again: Who is the best tennis player in history and who is the most admirable?
ATP has posted a video in which numerous faces say goodbye to the athlete, for many the best Spaniard of all time. Other Spaniards appear such as Carlos Alcaraz (with whom he has formed a union and rivalry in recent months that has gone down in the history of Spanish sport), Sergio Ramos, Marc Márquez or Pau Gasol. Also his eternal rivals Federer and Djokovic, as well as Serena Williams and Stéfanos Tsitsipas. Ana Botín, who confesses herself an unconditional fan of Rafa and is proud of the decision to sign him as an ambassador for Santander, also appears.
The president of the bank has also left him a post on Instagram: “In 2000, a very young Rafa Nadal was the standard bearer of the Spanish team in the Davis Cup final, the first that Spain won. Four years later, the He would win as a player – and he would do it four more times Yesterday, in this same competition, Rafa played his last match as a professional tennis player and, as always, he gave it his all“.
And he adds: “Since he began collaborating with Banesto in 2007, we have closely followed who is undoubtedly one of the best athletes in the world and the best Spanish athlete of all time, with 92 titles as a professional. And from the first day we have identified ourselves with the values that make it unique: his winning spirit and his ability to excel. Thank you, Rafa, we wish you the best in this new stage“.
Who is better?
Tennis in the last twenty years has seen a scene of deeds that seem taken from classic epics. Under the clean light of the fields, three titans have crossed their swords: Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. With different styles and opposite natures, these super men, these gods of the racket, have given shape to a mythological world.
Rafael Nadal has announced his farewell to the professional circuit, and with him goes more than just a champion: a warrior who always played as if his entire life was resolved in each point is retiring. With it a light goes out that not only illuminated the clay, grass and cement courts. His retirement is not that of just any athlete, but that of a man who turned every stroke of his racket into an act of resistance in the face of pain and adversity.
From Nadal we learned that giving up is not an option, not even when the body begs for rest. He is the man of obsessive rituals, of bottles aligned with military precision, of the inevitable and obsessive gesture when adjusting his clothes before each serve. Little quirks that, as Federer confesses in his farewell letter, ended up secretly enchanting him: “They were so you,” he writes. Bottles lined up like soldiers, hair behind the ear, clothes adjusted in a repetitive gesture. “All that was so unique, so you,” reads the Swiss’s affectionate note.
Those small acts, which at the time may have seemed insignificant, are now relics of memory. Because time, like defeats, erodes trophies, but never the details that made Nadal unique. Like a character in an epic novel, the Mallorcan forced his rivals to reach heights that perhaps they themselves did not know existed. And vice versa.
Three heroes, three forms of eternity
Roger Federer arrived first, like a gust of fresh air in a sport eager for perfection. He was a dancer on the floor, a sculptor who carved each stroke with the precision of Renaissance marble. He won with such grace that it seemed impossible to imagine him defeated. And yet, Rafael Nadal appeareda young Mallorcan man who overflowed with fury and passion. With his biceps exposed and a ribbon that crossed his forehead like a laurel wreath, Nadal stood in front of the Swiss in Miami in 2004. It was the beginning of a rivalry that would soon become legend.
Novak Djokovic joined that pairing, which already seemed enough to sustain the history of tennis.the intruder who refused to accept the role of troupe. Djokovic is the relentless perfectionist, a strategist who turned the court into a chessboard where every opponent’s move was calculated and countered with pinpoint precision. Federer was the elegance and beauty of Swiss precision; Nadal, the indestructible fortress of infinite poise, and Djokovic was the brain who sometimes suffered to the point of a nervous breakdown but who finally deciphered both enigmas, the Swiss and the Spanish.
Together, these three men rewrote the rules of the possible
Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. For two decades, this trio of titans turned tennis into something more than a sport: they elevated it to the category of art and epic. Federer was the first to arrive. He looked like a marble god, sculpted to transform each blow into a symphony. When he played, you couldn’t just hear the sound of the ball, but a whisper of perfection that caressed the souls. He was, as someone would say, the Mozart of tennis.
But then Nadal appeared, the barbarian with a sleeveless shirt and biceps carved by the fire of effort.. He did not surrender to Federer’s harmony, but rather disordered it. In 2008, he took the scepter from him in the famous Wimbledon final, a match that was not just a duel, but a battle under the gloom of the London evening. Nadal broke Federer’s perfect order to impose his fertile chaos, his indomitable claw.
And then Novak Djokovic arrived, the intruder who did not accept being a simple spectator. He was the relentless strategist, the one who turned each match into a chess game. He did not have the softness of Federer or the impetus of Nadal, but he possessed something equally fearsome: a self-love that admitted no boundaries. Djokovic showed that to defeat the best you have to be able to break not only your opponent’s spirit, but your own body if necessary.
An eternal duel
It wasn’t just tennis that we saw on the courts. What these three men offered us for years was a story about the human condition. Federer showed us the beauty, the grace of the man who seems oblivious to suffering. Nadal, on the other hand, represented the hero who is forged in the mud, who rises again and again with fists full of dust. And Djokovic, the outsider, taught us that even when all the spotlights are on others, talent and ambition can become unstoppable.
Who is the best? It is an inevitable question, but also absurd.. Federer has the gift of eternity: no matter how many times you’ve seen him play, there will always be something more to admire about his one-handed backhand. Djokovic is the absolute competitor, the man who dominates all surfaces with inhuman versatility. And Nadal is the gladiator who never agreed to give up, not even when injuries reduced him to a skeleton fighting against himself.
The privilege of living this era
The real answer to that question is not in the numbers, impressive as they are. It is not in the Grand Slams, the trophies or the weeks as number one. The answer is in the hearts of those who saw them. Federer made us cry with his beauty; Djokovic infuriated and amazed us with his determination; Nadal broke our souls with his ability to suffer and get back up.
If I had to choose, maybe I would stay with Rafa. Because in a world that glorifies victory, he taught us that defeat is not the end, but an opportunity to come back stronger. In every match, his body seemed to say, “Here I am, broken but invincible.” That is his legacy: not just how he won, but how he fought.
And yet, to choose between them is to betray the very essence of what they represented. It doesn’t matter if you were a loyal fan of Federer, a devotee of Nadal or an admirer of Djokovic. The important thing is that all of them, together, made us better. They gave us endings that will remain engraved in the collective memory and reminded us that, in sport and in life, what really matters is not the destination, but the journey.
So thank you, Rafa, for being the mirror of the struggle. Thank you, Roger, for the poetry you left on the grass. And thank you, Novak, for the lesson that ambition is fuel to claim your place in history.
To the three belongs the throne of eternity. In the meantime, we, the fans, the viewers, will remain the real winners.
