The Spaniard will bow out after the final phase of the Davis Cup at the end of November. A final challenge for a giant.
In Spain, Rafael Nadal covers the front pages of the newspapers this Friday. « Infinite Nadal », “Born to Win”, “His limit was the sky”, « le Big 3 devient Big 1 ». On 10 pages, Marca scrolls through the papers, leafs through the album of a life after the announcement this Thursday of the retirement (after the final phase of the Davis Cup in Malaga, from November 19 to 24) of Rafael Nadal, entered in the career with enthusiasm in 2001.
“Thank you Rafa”displayed in Une Mundo Deportivo, before returning at length to “an eternal legend”. And to explain: “He is the man of the impossible, after one of his countless serious injuries or starring in the most unthinkable comeback. » By relying on his roots, his family, his circle: “The pillars of his success are based on the environment of a large and close-knit family, the friends he has had since childhood and a working group made up of relatives, already friends or with whom he has developed close ties. friendship over the years. “What works is not touched,” summarized Rafa Nadal, who also highlighted the importance of living in Manacor. »
Mundo Deportivo recalls the path traveled, the pain endured to remain competitive despite the injuries that have littered his career: “Stronger after each physical setback. He lived with pain from the start due to a degenerative injury to his left foot, the cure for which meant problems in the rest of the body. Rafa Nadal has won twenty-two Grand Slam titles, despite being retired eighteen times due to injuries. He has more than twenty of them in his long career, most of them coming from changing his natural biomechanics, the original moves, to save his career in 2005.”
El Pais titre “The irremediable farewell of a myth” and insists on “the wounds of a hero in flesh and blood” : “One of the great competitors in the history of sport hangs up his racket after a year and a half of physical problems and pain. Nadal announces his retirement at 38, after a tough final argument with his physique and against his will. “I couldn’t play without limits,” he says. After 23 years in the elite and after a lifetime of handling the racket, the granite champion, the guy that all of Spain has seen grow and succeed – whether he loved tennis or not – is retiring from the courts for good because of the pain. Him and his body, an all or nothing relationship; heaven and hell. A last year and a half full of problems led to a decision that he, resilient like few others, tried to delay (…) Nadal leaves as the Lord of the Earth, an undeniable dominator of the most strategic surface, with 92 titles in the bag – 14 at Roland Garros and a total of 63 on clay – and with the stamp of the fiercest competitor, capable of assaulting Federer’s reign and resisting Djokovic. »
In Italy, Nadal is also making headlines. « Merci »pins the Gazzetta dello Sport on the front page which accompanies the legend “a warrior who marked the history of the earth” : “The gladiator leaves the arena and the world bows before his valor and his values, sublimated by a passion and respect for his sport which have made him a global icon. Rafael Nadal the greatest warrior in the history of tennis. »
In Switzerland, Rafael Nadal is also appearing. “Farewell to the earth “, grabs Le Temps. “The second time, it always hurts a little less. Two years after Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal announced that he will retire at the end of the eight-man final round of the Davis Cup in which he is expected to participate with the Spanish team. We had prepared for it as the warning signs were the same, injuries more and more frequent, appearances more and more spaced out, opponents less and less impressed. And then the age of course (…) It is impossible to dissociate Nadal from Federer at the time of the adios. Similarities even in the announcement, through a long video message where a false tranquility and real fragility shine through. The mouth smiles but the voice hesitates and the eyes are red…”
In Belgium, Le Soir mentions “the greatest player on clay” : “A ball of energy: from his big debut, at 16, on the circuit to the end of his career at 38, Rafael Nadal will have irradiated the tennis world with his crazy explosiveness. Some will say that before even stepping onto a court, he had won the game because he was so full of adrenaline, like a boxer entering a ring with rage on his gloves. Moreover, he caused a sensation at the very beginning of his career, with his sleeveless t-shirt revealing his destructive left arm, and a bandana in his hair giving him a Sioux look, ready to scalp anything that moves. The bull of Manacor is a totem that sticks remarkably to his skin, to the point of becoming the acronym of his academy, located in Manacor, his hometown, on the island of Majorca. »
For the Team, “the earth stood still”… “Paris had a presentiment of this, otherwise why would he have poured out his sorrows to this extent in the hours which preceded his king’s announcement? An ashen and gloomy sheet covered the sky of Roland-Garros, the land which brought him to the pantheon of his sport and of sport in general, when Rafael Nadal marked the end of a story which we hoped he would push back, a little more, the epilogue. In just over a month, after a final rodeo in front of his home crowd, in Malaga, in the Davis Cup, the 38-year-old Spaniard will take off his bandana one last time and then shake off his balding mane. It will then be time to say “adios” before, probably more for us than for him, an agonizing leap into the void. »
