Rafael Nadal made several attempts to overcome severe injury issues in the last few years of his career. The Spaniard has outlined what made him accept that returning close to his past level would not be possible.
After winning the 2022 Australian Open and French Open, Nadal was never the same player after sustaining an injury in the 2022 Wimbledon quarterfinal with Taylor Fritz, which turned out to be his final appearance at SW19.
That was followed by an even more serious abdominal injury at the 2023 Australian Open, ruling him out for the remainder of that season. The tennis legend had surgery for that problem to try and get in a place where he could compete again.
Nadal made a couple of comeback attempts. First, he played at the 2024 Brisbane International before hurting his abdominals again and being forced to withdraw from the 2024 Australian Open a few weeks later.
There were some hopeful signs when the 14-time French Open champion competed well in the opening round at Roland Garros last year against the eventual runner-up Alexander Zverev. Nadal was very unfortunate to draw the German so early.
However, Nadal was crushed by his old rival Novak Djokovic at the 2024 Olympics, also played at Roland Garros. After so many incredible battles between the pair, seeing Djokovic dismantle him so easily felt like the end of an era.
In an appearance on the Served With Andy Roddick Podcast, Nadal admitted he knew it was time to retire after that chastening loss, having previously attempted to give himself as much time as possible to improve his level.
“After the Olympics, I came back home and said ‘it’s over, I feel it.’ Before I didn’t feel it, I wanted to give myself the time. But after that, I say ‘okay, it doesn’t make sense, I don’t feel like with this issue I’m going to come back and be competitive at the level that motivates me.’ When I felt that, it was over.”
Nadal also discussed how he could not physically push like in the past because of his abdominal issue, despite the surgery for it going pretty well at the time.
“After the surgery things went more or less well, we started the recovery process, take six or seven months. I started practising, I felt quite well, but the problem is I still had the feeling that I was not able to push, I felt some limitations in that area.”
“So I gave myself time to see if I am able to recover myself the proper way, because in terms of tennis, I still felt well in myself, still felt competitive, I didn’t feel like I lost speed on the ball, just needed to recover the physical confidence and take out the limitations.”
“That’s why all these months had been difficult because in some way I felt at some point maybe that it’s going to go well, I was able to compete, but I was not able to compete at the level that I wanted for different reasons, because I was not playing well maybe.”
Nadal ultimately retired at the 2024 Davis Cup Finals. His last singles appearance ended in a defeat to Botic van de Zandschulp before Team Netherlands eliminated Team Spain after winning the deciding doubles rubber.
The retirement ceremony given to Nadal caused controversy and was accused of being underwhelming. Carlos Moya, Nadal’s sole coach from 2018 until the end of his career, called it shabby.
