Roger Federer already knew, and, in his own way, he told it to the whole world on the morning of September 3rd in a television studio in New York: Rafael Nadal would soon announce his retirement. A retirement that the Spaniard did not want and that, in the video of the announcement, it is clear that he still does not accept.
You have to look at the differences between Federer’s retirement announcement, on 15 September 2022, and Nadal’s, on 10 October 2024. The Swiss chose to put a smiling photo while in an audio explaining the decision. Nadal chose a first image in which he looks serious and can be heard snorting, hurt and distressed by what he is about to say.
The way of announcing that he is hanging up his racquet could not be more Nadalian: he is not retiring, it is not his decision, it is reality that withdraws him. If it were up to him, he would have continued playing in 2025 and beyond. But his physique, that great armour, essential to get as far as he did, said ‘enough’. He shouted ‘enough’, you could say.
An agonising process for the man who always believed that the impossible was possible. Or was it not impossible to win the same Grand Slam tournament 14 times?
That’s why he was convinced that if his body respected him, his tennis was still powerful enough to play in 2025. That’s why, since he announced on 18 May 2023 that he was stopping the machine to reset it and come back, he always left doors open. He said goodbye to Madrid, but not to Rome; he fell in the first round of Roland Garros, but perhaps it was not the last match there…
The message, or rather the dagger in his sporting heart, came through loud and clear on 29 July this year, with a 6-1, 6-4 defeat by Novak Djokovic in the second round of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The defeat hurt Nadal terribly: ‘There was a much better player than the other and you have to accept it. For an hour it was hard to digest everything that was happening, but I did.”
And now what? ‘It seems that you want me to retire!’, complained the Spaniard.
The logical reaction of a sportsman who is used to always winning. The next day would come the elimination in doubles with Carlos Alcaraz, the farewell forever of the Olympic Games and, although it was not yet confirmed, of Roland Garros, of the central court that saw him do what nobody, never, had done in tennis. And no one, ever, will ever do again.
It was already August, and at the age of 38, Nadal found himself in the situation that months before he had emphatically rejected, annoyed, in a dialogue with a friend.
– Rafa, where are you going sailing this summer?
– What are you telling me? I’m a professional tennis player, I don’t have time to go on a trip!
It was August and he had to make a decision. That’s why he also called Federer. To understand how the Swiss came to retirement, how he made the last decision.
Nadal retirement
Now he will have all the time in the world. His attempt to become a professional tennis player in 2024 ended with just seven tournaments, 19 matches and seven defeats. That is, from April 2002 to July 2024, 1,307 singles matches with 1,080 victories: 92 titles, 22 of them Grand Slam titles.
After the Six Kings Slam exhibition in Saudi Arabia from 16 to 18 October, his only and last official engagement is the Davis Cup on 19 November in Malaga, exactly 20 years after that title in Seville in which, at the age of 18, he led his older teammates to victory over the United States. Nadal had already said it: he would not say goodbye at a press conference, but on the court.
Is these five weeks enough time for Nadal to come to terms with what he said but didn’t want to say? Federer explained it to him in that call, which the Swiss revealed in detail: “He can do whatever he wants. He’s been one of the most iconic tennis players we’ve had in our sport and that’s what I told him. So I just hope he can go his own way and the way he wants to go.”
