With a delayed ending, extending the suspense until after twelve at night, Rafael Nadal confirmed his goodbye. With Spain eliminated after losing 2-1 to the Netherlands, the Balearic Islands concluded an extraordinary journey of more than twenty years from title to title, from triumph to triumph, from applause to applause.
As if tennis did not want to say goodbye to him, the day in Malaga went from tears to hope and back to sighing for a farewell that no one wanted to happen. A void that is impossible to fill becomes real, even if the Balearic Islander leaves wrapped in this track, and all the tracks, for everything he has given and left imprinted on the collective and emotional imagination of the fans.
With the result in hand, there is criticism about his presence on the court in the first match of the tie. Asked four times if he felt ready to play, and if his debut was a good idea, he gave the answer with his finger pointing at David Ferrer. However, the public, the fan, who has followed Nadal’s entire career did not care, what they wanted was to see him. His last blows, his last fists in the air, his last breath with a racket in his hand. It didn’t matter how.
Although he finally accepted the reality with which he has been battling for two years: «I have given everything as always. “One cannot control the level one has, one can only control the attitude and that has not failed me, but I have not been capable of the necessary level to be able to give the point to Spain.” And he later elaborated on the explanation: «I have trained well enough, but in competition I have not been able to perform as well as I would have liked. On a track that is very fast, you don’t have time to think about the points and when you are out of competition it is difficult to keep up. You need quick reactions because everything is decided in details, and you need them to work automatically, without thinking. And I don’t have the automatisms that those who are still in the circuit have. “I didn’t have the mental agility to do things without thinking.”
He didn’t want to be too hard on himself, he’s been doing it for over twenty years now and this wasn’t the game to do that. It was the game of giving your best, of giving a few more minutes of Nadal, and being able to enjoy a little more on the court and with your teammates. So tears turned to euphoria in Nadal who went from tennis player to fan to support Carlos Alcaraz first, champion without dispute over Tallon Griekspoor, and then in the duo with Marcel Granollers, a competitive match against Van de Zandschulp and Koolhof that ended with cruel defeat.
Alcaraz’s double demands ended up taking a toll on his legs and his ideas, and although he mixed well with the experience of Granollers, which has been this number 1 doubles course in the world, the Dutch couple had more drive in the tie break and to give the ax blow in the second chapter. That hyperactive Nadal also stayed there forever on the bench, giving advice, instructions, encouragement. Pure spectacle with which he tried to lead the team towards victory, towards one step closer to the seventh Salad Bowl, towards another day to feel like a tennis player. Whether he played or not played later. Just feeling one more day what has been a lifetime.
But it couldn’t be in this quarterfinal tie and it hasn’t been able to be in recent months. Since that injury to the abdominal area at Wimbledon 2022, Nadal began to disappear little by little. He tried everything, as always, but the scars were stronger and stronger than him.
He tried to return, recognizable in his first tournament in 2023 after a six-month break. But there was another blow to the body, more time off, tournaments to which he said no, more months in fallow, a resignation from Roland Garros and the rest of the course, an operation on his birthday. But hope to return.
But in 2024, things were not much better. Two wins in Brisbane and another break in the third match. Goodbye to Australia, and everything else, because he didn’t arrive on time for the clay season and arrived just enough to Roland Garros. An emotional blow to lose against Alexander Zverev in the first round from which he did not physically recover, with no real chance of emerging with guarantees in the Olympic Games and returning home without a real plan of what to do in the future. Tennis was there, but everything else was not there: energy, physicality, automatisms, rolling, level for tennis that continued pushing without him.
The doors were opened for him to close a magnificent career with the possibility of another title, in company, in the Davis Cup, which was also closing a beautiful circle for a final at his level. Everything was prepared. Alcaraz, Granollers, Ferrer, Martínez, Moyà, Ferrero… Nadal himself pushed the times, the hand, the wrist, the desire, the energy. All. But it wasn’t real. It was the confused illusion of hope and desires, of continuing to believe in the one who had made so many people believe. But it wasn’t enough.
The doubles is lost and Nadal is dismissed, with all honors, of course, because he has given so much that it is impossible to summarize it in a few lines, on a sheet of paper, in an applause. But it is tried, the only way to honor a champion like Nadal. The Balearic says goodbye, his legacy begins. Now, Nadal says goodbye to tennis. Tennis is less tennis from now on.
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