Nadal says goodbye in tears

There was a lot of crying on this Tuesday evening in Málaga. The occasion was also designed to give rise to sentimental feelings. Rafael Nadal played his last match as a professional tennis player. And the story ended the same way it began 20 years earlier: with a defeat in the Davis Cup.

Beckham and García also pay tribute to Nadal

Rafael Nadal played his first Davis Cup match on February 6, 2004 against the Czech Jiri Novak. Between that first and the last defeat there were 29 victories in the Davis Cup. But it wasn’t the 4:6, 4:6 against the Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp (ATP 80) that brought tears to Nadal’s eyes.

In a greeting video that was shown on the screen in the arena, long-time competitors and companions paid tribute to the career of the 22-time Grand Slam winner. Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Serena Williams spoke, as did the footballer David Beckham and the golfer Sergio García.

Nadal has radiated far beyond tennis. His popularity is not only based on his 22 Grand Slam victories and his 70 other major and minor tournament victories. In 20 years on the tennis tour he won 1,080 of his 1,309 games. He was almost invincible for years, especially on sand. He won Roland-Garros alone, the most important of all clay court tournaments, 14 times. Only Novak Djokovic (three times), Robin Söderling and Alexander Zverev, who put an end to Nadal’s reign in Paris last May, have beaten him on the red earth in the Bois de Boulogne.

Nadal was admired for his will. “Resilience” is one of the buzzwords of the moment, far beyond sport. If there is anyone who embodies this resilience, the ability to stand up to the seemingly inevitable and push through, it is probably Nadal. Even as a boy, doctors told him that he would never be able to play professional tennis because of an orthopedic misalignment in his feet. It was just one of almost countless diagnoses and prognoses that he refuted through his will.

But now Nadal’s will to fight has also been broken. When he said goodbye on Tuesday evening, he said: “You actually never want to get to this point. I’m still not tired of tennis. But my body just doesn’t want to go on anymore. And we have to accept that.” He was able to turn his hobby into his profession and therefore considers himself a privileged person. «I believe in continuity and reliability. That’s why I’ll remain forever connected to the people who supported me in my career and stood by me when things got difficult.”

Nine major finals against Roger Federer

Roger Federer is one of these people. The two played against each other 40 times in their careers, and the balance of these encounters is 24:16 in favor of Nadal. The Spaniard also won 6 of the 9 matches that took place as part of a major final. But the last of these most prestigious comparisons went to Federer at the Australian Open in 2017.

Despite this long, often bitter rivalry, a friendship developed between the two that continues to this day. Before the Davis Cup final tournament and Nadal’s last appearance on the tour, Federer addressed his long-time rival in an open letter on Instagram. He writes there that before he gets emotional, he would like to share a few thoughts with him: “You challenged me in a way that no one else did. But you know what, Rafa, thanks to you I enjoyed the game even more than I already did.”

So now Rafael Nadal has also put the tennis racket down. He hasn’t played regularly for over two years. And yet: With him, the tennis circus is losing one of its great personalities.