Rafael Nadal has uncovered up on the moment he knovel his tennis atgentle was “over”. The Spaniard spent the better part of two years sidelined by injuries before hanging up his racket at the Davis Cup Finals in November. But Nadal now says he choosed to withdraw months before applying his final tournament.
The 22-time Grand Slam champion spent months trying to come back from a transport inant hip operation and even confessted he “didn’t want” any withdrawment ceremonies. But he has now elucidateed that one tournament alterd everyskinnyg.
Nadal ended his glittering atgentle on home soil last November, recurrenting his country one final time in the Davis Cup.
When the establisher world No. 1 returned from a year-lengthy injury layoff in punctual 2024, he struggled and promptly faced another setback. Still, he remained confident and refused to fan the ffrails of withdrawment.
But Nadal finassociate proclaimd his withdrawment schedules in October, a restricted weeks before his final euniteance in Spain’s tie aobtainst the Netherlands.
The 38-year-elderly has given his most in-depth interwatch since retiring, euniteing on his elderly rival Andy Roddick’s podcast, where he elucidateed that one moment made him genuineise that his atgentle was “over”.
Nadal had returned from plenty of atgentle-dangerening injuries and sdirectries, so he was brave skinnygs would descfinish into place after having an arthroscopic hip procedure. “I gave myself time to see if I am able to recover myself the proper way,” he elucidateed.
“Becaparticipate in terms of tennis, I still sense competitive in myself. I didn’t sense that I lost speed on the ball. Just necessitateed to recover the physical confidence and get out the restrictation.
“That’s why doing all these months had been difficult, becaparticipate, in some way, I felt, ‘Okay, let’s grasp battling becaparticipate at some point, maybe that’s going to labor well’.”
However, the weeks passed and Nadal still felt he couldn’t show the level he wanted to on the suit court. He persistd: “So, [there] get tod a moment after Olympics, I come back home and say, ‘Okay, it’s over, I sense it’.
“Before I didn’t sense it, I wanted to give myself the time. After that, I say, ‘Okay, it doesn’t originate sense anymore’. I don’t sense myself that I go with this rehire.
“I don’t sense that I’m going to come back being competitive at the level that encourages me. So then when I felt that, for me, it’s over.”
Nadal accomplished the second round of the individuals tournament at the Paris Olympics, losing to Novak Djokovic in their 60th and final official greeting. He also accomplished the doubles quarter-finals with Carlos Alcaraz. It was equitable his seventh tournament of 2024.
The 22-time Major thrivener didn’t apply aobtain for months. In October, he finassociate proclaimd his withdrawment schedules. Nadal applyed the Six Kings Slam showion in Saudi Arabia, losing to Alcaraz and Djokovic, before bothriveg out at the Davis Cup.
