Tennis might not realize what it will miss most about Rafael Nadal now that he has announced his retirement following the November Davis Cup finals. Beyond his barely comprehensible success—22 major tournament titles (second all-time among men) in spite of chronic injury; beyond his delightful rivalry with Roger Federer that somehow never included a head-to-head match at the U.S. Open; beyond the early quirky beachcomber pants and sleeveless shirts and ongoing OCD attention to assuring his refreshment bottles were precisely placed courtside, there was a Nadal humility and respect rare among elite champions.
After a shocking early upset loss at the 2015 U.S. Open to journeyman Italian Fabio Fognini, Nadal’s analysis was typical, simply acknowledging that Fognini “played great. It was not a match that I lost, even if I had opportunities. It’s a match that he wins. So, accept. Not happy that he played better than me, but that’s what happened. That’s it.”
As his career began to wind down and he stalked Federer’s then-record 20 Grand Slam tournaments championships, Nadal was both philosophical and reasonable. “As I always say to you and is true: I would love to be the one to have more, yes. But you cannot be all day frustrated, or all day thinking about what’s your neighbor have better than you. You have to be happy with yourself. You have to do your way. If you are the one to achieve more, fantastic. If not, at least I give my best during all of my career. That’s all.”
Head-to-head, he eventually came out ahead of Federer, 24-16, though Novak Djokovic—the third of the 21st Century’s Big Three in men’s tennis—has passed them both with 24 major titles. But what made Nadal so appealing was his commitment to the moment, rather than history. He always was a one-point-at-a-time, one stroke-at-a-time player, and his disposition never changed.
He surpassed $60 million in career earnings, yet old champion Jimmy Connors once noted how “Nadal plays like he’s broke.”
There was a menace in his tennis, a dastardly persistence enhanced by a forehand groundstroke that could make your top spin. John Yandell, who for years used high-speed cameras to study tennis-ball rotation, pinpointed how it took “about a second for Rafa’s ball to get to [his opponent’s] strings. From .85 to 1.2 seconds. In that time, the ball turns over 50 to 60 times”—which worked out to between 3,000 and 3,600 revolutions per minute.
“It’s hard to believe that could actually be true,” But the topspin it produced was so severe that the ball “surged up from Nadal’s toes, more of an arc,” Yandell analyzed, “heavier but just as fast….If you look at his big bolo swing…my hypothesis is he’s increasing the sidespin as well” so that opponents were forced to strike the ball “at shoulder level or higher at times, and they may be a foot off the ground when they hit it….The full effect of the spin destroys your contact point.”
And still the fascinating dichotomy was how Nadal’s charging-bull-at-Pamplona playing style—goring opponents competitively and psychologically—didn’t jive with his declaration that he was having such a great time. “I love the sport like a spectator,” he often said. “So to have a chance to go on court in big stadiums that I saw on the TV when I was a kid always is really special for me.”
Each match, each point, Nadal said, was “not about experience, not about pressure or any of that stuff. It’s always about playing well. That’s it.”
There was a lot to appreciate about Nadal, who turned pro as a teen and played the tour for 23 years. (In 2017, South African veteran Kevin Anderson, then 31, made it to the U.S. Open final only to be thrashed by Nadal and said to him, “I know we’re the same age, but I fell I’ve been watching you my whole life.”)
Nadal had hip surgery, tendinitis in both knees; wrist, back, forearm, elbow, ankle and foot maladies as well as an abdominal tear that forced him out of a Wimbledon semifinal—and still made it to 38 with a high-intensity physical style. If his body hadn’t reached the moment where, as he put it, “raises a white flag,” he said he would have carried on. “Even though your head wants to keep going, your body says this is as far as it goes.”
It’s what has been described as the “little death” that awaits all athletes, long before they will shuffle off this mortal coil. But, boy, it was fun while it lasted. And not just for Nadal. That’s it.
