Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal announced Thursday that he would retire at the age of 38. After the raw emotion of the news, we must understand the place it will occupy in the history books.
Remember the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on July 26 and this magnificent image (no, not that of Philippe Katerine as Dionysus, Editor’s note), when Zinédine Zidane passed the Olympic flame to Rafael Nadal. The emotion that gripped us all when the Spanish king of clay appeared at the Trocadéro, as if he were at home in Paris, as if he belonged to the family.
The greatest Spanish sportsman of all time
For tennis alone, Rafael Nadal is undoubtedly in the top 3 in history with his Swiss friend Roger Federer and his great Serbian rival Novak Djokovic. His track record is fabulous: 92 career titles, including 22 Grand Slam tournaments and 36 Masters 1000s, five Davis Cups with Spain and two gold medals at the Olympic Games (one in singles in 2008, one in doubles in 2016) . His domination on the clay court of Roland-Garros is legendary with 14 Porte d’Auteuil singles titles in nineteen appearances. No one has ever crushed the competition to this extent in a single Grand Slam tournament. Unique.
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Rafael Nadal is also the greatest champion that Spain has ever worn. In 2020, during the Covid-19 crisis, the sports newspaper Marca organized a poll among its readers to determine who was the greatest Iberian sportsman in history. Of course, the younger generation has somewhat forgotten the champions of yesteryear like the cyclist Luis Ocaña or the golfer Severiano Ballesteros, which distorts the final result. But Rafael Nadal beat basketball player Pau Gasol in the final of the consultation with… 82% of the votes. More than a victory, a plebiscite.
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To determine the place occupied by an athlete in this type of ranking, which is necessarily influenced by the culture of the moment, there are the results, the prize list but also the aura on and off the field. On the courts, Rafael Nadal was the ultimate gladiator, the man who donated his body to fend off pain.
No one will dispute his courage and strength of character. Even Novak Djokovic, his fiercest opponent – the two men faced each other 60 times, a record of course, with 31 victories for the Serb but only 7 out of 18 Grand Slams – was full of praise for him. . “Your tenacity, your devotion, your rage to win will be told for decades. Your legacy will live forever. Only you can know everything you endured to become an icon of tennis and sport in general,” he said.
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An example that makes sport proud
And off the field, Rafael Nadal is an example that brings pride to sport. In his tribute, Eurosport journalist Laurent Vergne returns to an anecdote that says so much about the man he is. In 2008, when he had just won the fourth of his 14 titles at Roland-Garros, the champion wanted to treat himself to a large sports car but his father Sebastian was not of this opinion, putting him at challenge to win Wimbledon. What’s next? “Rafa” wins on the London grass by dominating the master of the place Roger Federer and buys a Ferrari 458 Italia… Except that he didn’t need it. Finding himself “ridiculous”, he sold it almost immediately.
Not bling for a penny, with rare kindness and humility, Rafael Nadal represents sport at its most noble: self-sacrifice, self-sublimation, fair play. On this dimension, he is clearly in the top 10 in history.
Remember the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on July 26 when he took his place in a boat to go up the Seine in the company of the American tennis player Serena Williams, the Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci and the athlete American Carl Lewis. The “bull of Manacor” (his hometown) was in place, among the great champions in the history of sport.
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