The inevitability of Rafael Nadal’s retirement had long been palpable. It could be seen in every successive comeback that he managed to pull ever since that abdominal tear at Wimbledon that put brakes to his dream run in 2022. There was a sense of déjà vu to it. It was all too familiar. Anyone having closely followed Nadal’s career would be aware of the relentless spate of injuries that have been permanent accompaniments to his journey in professional tennis. And too many have felt like the final one. To therefore admit this has to be the one, wasn’t the easiest – for Nadal himself or for the millions who swear by him.
But every successive comeback post this injury kept adding to the clarity. The movement had been significantly compromised, the forehand lacked the flavour, the judgement of drop-shots had taken a hit, and the all-round ruthlessness had become a thing of past. The aura of invincibility had dropped and Nadal was now at the very least delaying the inevitable, if not being outright in denial of what had become painfully clear.
What’s often obvious on the outside though isn’t quite as straightforward to players themselves; even less so to the most outrageously successful ones. Perhaps shielding themselves completely against the external noise and building up a bubble is essential to their success. But that belief takes a lot more to wear out than we imagine. Nadal struggling to find any rhythm in his shot-making in these last two years had become agonising to watch. It was getting increasingly harder to fight in social media fan wars against those relishing in schadenfreude.
— Rafa Nadal (@RafaelNadal) July 26, 2024
And yet, none of that is sufficiently convincing for the player himself to admit it’s over. It takes a lot more. In Nadal’s case, it took one more injury on top of it all. It’s hardly unordinary for an athlete eventually having to surrender to the limitations of his body – particularly in a physically gruelling sport like tennis.
But despite that realisation, Nadal kept finding that desperate bit of hope to cling on to. He’d always defeated injuries. Maybe there was still a way. The tour isn’t at its strongest. Maybe it wouldn’t even require for him to be at his beastly levels to still be reasonably competitive. It’s possible Nadal would’ve grappled with a mishmash of these reveries before letting the emotion make room for reason. And reason, would quite resoundingly suggest, there was no ‘one more time’ left in his body this time.
Despite the constant struggle with injuries that had kinda become the defining theme of Nadal’s aura, he was always thought of as a physical specimen of sorts. Right from the days when he broke into the circuit, Nadal was faster, stronger, more resolute, and had more miles in his legs than most players he’d go on to face for the better part of two decades.
Place him among his fiercest rivals Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer; the trio, put together, are most definitively the three greatest players of all time. While Djokovic’s reputation is built on producing mechanically perfect tennis, Federer carved his brand out of the flair and artistry in his game. These perceptions of course aren’t the most scientifically defined ones but they aren’t entirely inaccurate either. Djokovic indeed is impossible to physically out-manoeuvre. Federer indeed possessed elements that allowed him access to spaces in a court that his opponents wouldn’t be able to.
‘The trio, put together, are most definitively the three greatest players of all time.’ Photo: X/@TheTennisLetter
Nadal’s greatness, among other things, lay specifically in cracking both these challenges and finding solutions to overpower both Federer and Djokovic separately at their respective peaks. It’s hard to state this unqualifiedly but perhaps no player in history of men’s tennis has had it tougher than this. While Nadal managed to comprehensively dominate the rivalry with Federer for majority of its duration, the duel with Djokovic remained much more even right till the end. That Djokovic managed to physically outlast him proved to be decisive in who came out on top in the title tally.
But reputations and legacies aren’t strictly a function of the final title count. Nadal’s always had to fight a rather disingenuously hatched up narrative of being someone whose dominance wasn’t necessarily surface-agnostic. The argument often forwarded in support of this notion is his grand slam count that’s heavily lopsided by the titles won (14 of 22) on the surface he most preferred (clay). The perception is so hard-wired, you could be forgiven for thinking Nadal was a surface-specialist of some sort who never mastered grass and hard courts.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Nadal’s Wimbledon and Australian Open record – two titles each – reads underwhelmingly for the same reason Federer and Djokovic’s reads negligible to modest at the French Open. The three have stood massively in each other’s way as long as their best years coincided. To cast doubts over the completeness of their game is plain ignorance at best and downright dishonesty at worst.
A contest of finest margins after a point is decided on factors that one isn’t entirely in control of. And Nadal has been on the receiving end of these a little too many times. With a few things falling in place, both his Australian Open and Wimbledon tallies would be reading way more flatteringly than they instead do. The heartbreaking losses in the finals of 2012 and 2017 at the Rod Laver Arena were for the longest time considered unhealable but the redemption at the same venue in 2022 more than made up for those.
‘It’s the miracle in Melbourne’ – As the words roared on TV screens with Nadal hitting the volley out of Daniil Medvedev’s reach, it marked what could arguably be called one of the most impossible wins of all time. Nadal had literally zero business winning that final after being two sets down and facing three break points in the third. What followed shall remain a turnaround for the ages. Nadal’s smile at the end of it carried as much bewilderment as it did relief.
And if it felt like things peaked in that moment, he would actually go on to beat Djokovic at the French Open quarterfinal the same year. In what was only the second time Nadal started as the heavy underdog at the Roland Garros – first since 2015 when he lost to Djokovic at the same stage – he ensured his reputation wasn’t taking any more beating before going on to win the title with two more emphatic performances.
That the injury he picked in the middle of Wimbledon that year put an end to this kind of run makes it doubly frustrating. But Nadal can take some comfort in the fact that it could’ve happened much sooner than it did. During the dry run of 2015-16, when he went two full years without bagging a major title, even the most loyal of fans had to find in the deepest recesses of optimism any hope for a comeback. The spell with injuries was unrelenting. Djokovic was beating him for fun. He wasn’t moving as swiftly on court. It was widely accepted that Nadal was done for.
Those feel like memories of a distant past now but at that point, only a hopeless romantic could’ve seen him win eight more slams. And it’s not like the physical chagrin had been put to bed once he found winning ways again. The entire second coming was interspersed with troubled knees, fractured ankles, and at one time a broken wrist that threatened to take sting out of his forehand for good. But the eponymous feature that defined Rafael Nadal for over two decades was his steadfast refusal of resigning against what looks inevitable.
Also read: Why the Novak Djokovic-Rafael Nadal Rivalry Is Truly Special
It’s not uncommon among athletes for their perfectly blossoming careers to be cut short by injuries. Dominic Thiem was universally accepted to be The Guy who’d go on to dominate the tour as Nadal and Djokovic headed to their twilights. But in a cruel twist of fate, an untimely wrist injury forced his career to conclude even before Nadal’s and with only a solitary slam-win to show for.
Thiem’s distressing end becomes particularly contextual here given how closely Nadal’s avoided a similar fate – and more than once. It’d then be a bit greedy on part of his fans to brood about the injury denying him the chance to cash in on a relatively weak tour. A couple more majors would’ve contributed little beyond adding rows to his Wikipedia profile. The legacy has been long sealed.
It’s somewhat poetic Nadal made his last competitive Singles appearance against none but Djokovic at the Paris Olympics earlier this year. It was a one-sided affair on expected lines but no other player could’ve done adequate justice from the other side of the court to one of the greatest ever sporting careers coming to an end.
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Photo: X/@DjokerNole
In much the same way, Nadal’s likely last ever Singles game – though only in an exhibition tournament – too was a faceoff with Djokovic in Riyadh the past weekend. Once again, a win for Djokovic was only a formality but some vintage groundstrokes – none more so than a forehand winner hit down the line – ensured the parting memory remained an extremely evocative one.
At the end of the match, Djokovic delivered a very moving speech that duly graced the occasion. Though very erudite and measured with his words for the most part, he couldn’t help but drop his guard and quickly slipped in a plea asking Nadal if he would still reconsider. In that moment, Djokovic was both the greatest rival and the biggest admirer of Nadal at once. In case, any last shred of validation was still missing, well, it wasn’t anymore.
An entire generation of fans has learned to love tennis itself through their love for Nadal. He symbolises the sport. He’s remained a constant for as long as they’ve followed the sport. His pain and struggles have been personalised and, in his triumph, have they found the fleeting sense of meaning. The emotional connect with sporting icons is never rooted in rational thought. But Nadal took the irrational a couple notches higher than most could.
The grunts and the groans will take a while to move on from. The signature forehand shall be crystalised through reels and shorts. There’ll be ample reminiscence for the historic decima whereas those wanting to experiment in masochist fetish, shall time and again bring up the 2012 Australian Open final.
Many shall announce the beginning of their detachment from tennis while a few others will cope writing verbose essays such as this one. But then, most would realise the other wunderkind from Spain isn’t half bad either. In fact, he’s already way more than a wunderkind, isn’t he? And that’d be enough to remain glued to the sport. We’ve always been suckers for this after all.
