Goodbyes habitually go hand-in-hand with feelings of sadness and nostalgia. In the case of Rafael Nadal at this week’s Davis Cup Finals, however, he is trying to keep the emotions surrounding his last few days as a professional tennis player at bay. As a result, despite being very much at peace with his situation, he is reluctant to discuss a dream scenario for his swansong.
“There’s no ideal farewell,” Nadal was quick to point out at Team Spain’s press conference on Monday in Malaga ahead of its quarter-final against the Netherlands on Tuesday. “Movie-script finales are for American movies and I realised a long time ago that I wouldn’t have one of those, so it’s not something that I’m worried about.”
The 22-time Grand Slam champion is keen to downplay the significance of his farewell, normalising the inevitable process of retirement that every athlete has to endure. “I’m handling it as well as possible, with the same normality with which I’ve tried to approach everything during good and bad times, without any kind of excess.”
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While the questions were almost all directed at the man of the moment, his teammates at the table, Carlos Alcaraz, David Ferrer, Roberto Bautista Agut, Marcel Granollers and Pedro Martinez occasionally touched on their admiration for Nadal’s career. They could have been speaking on behalf of the whole sporting world and every lover of the game.
“Of course, this is the end of a stage of my life. I’ve shared so many years with many of them [his teammates], not so many with others, but I feel the same when I see an athlete I’m used to watching on TV every week. In the end, they’re part of your life,” explained Nadal.
“I understand that for a lot of people who have grown up watching me play all the time, it’s the end of that period of time, they’ll never see me playing professionally again,” continued the 92-time ATP Tour champion. “It’s something that’s part of life itself, that has happened to everyone and right now it’s my turn, which is normal.”
The former No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings will, at least, be able to say goodbye in the way he wanted one year ago when he spoke to the press; in competition. “I don’t deserve to end my career like this, at a press conference,” he said in May 2023 when he announced that this would be his last season as a professional.
“In the end, what I said has come to be; that this year would probably be my last, and that’s the way it is,” he said of his words spoken last year at the Rafa Nadal Academy. “But I wanted to give myself the opportunity, because I always like to be sure, I don’t want to leave myself wondering ‘what if I hadn’t done [this or that]...’”.
[ATP APP]With just two tournaments played in 2023 (United Cup and the Australian Open), he decided to go under the knife so that he could hang up his racquet doing just what he has for almost 25 seasons as a pro: playing tennis.
“I know that I’ve done everything I can, my time has come and [I have to] accept it as such, without any kind of drama so that I can leave with the personal satisfaction that I always made the effort required by the situation,” he added. “Just as I have many other times and it’s worked well for me, a time has come where, because of my age and the accumulation of everything and the multifactorial injury, I have to say goodbye now.”
But until that “goodbye” he still has at least one chapter left to write, on Tuesday in the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup Finals. “We’re here to compete, we can’t let everything else distract us from what we’re here to do, which is to try our utmost to get the best result possible.”
Although Nadal does not want to discuss his ideal send-off, one thing is clear; lifting his sixth Davis Cup title on Sunday with Spain would not be a bad way to go. “It would be fantastic if the whole team were competitive, trying to win another Davis Cup. Besides being an amazing goodbye for me, it would be a great joy for everyone.”
Editor's note: This story was translated from ATPTour.com/es
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