Adiós, Rafa!
It is the 2009 Australian Open semifinals. Nadal and Verdasco find themselves in a grueling five-set battle and the match has already stretched past midnight.
As he sits down on his chair during a game break, Nadal spots a dandelion petal drifting by. He instinctively snatches it. And makes a wish.
“Win the title!!” he closes his eyes briefly and whispers, and then proceeds to play.
Italian tennis photographer Gianni Ciaccia is the only photographer who spots Nadal spotting the dandelion petal and he captures that moment.
History would record this as a match in which Nadal ultimately triumphed, and then moved onto the final to secure the championship by playing in another intense five-set match against Federer.
It felt almost supernatural.
Remember when Djokovic and Nadal could barely stand during the Australian Open 2012 award ceremony after battling for 6 hours, and they had to bring them chairs? That final rivals the epic 2008 Wimbledon showdown between Federer and Nadal as one of the greatest tennis matches ever played.
It was dark on 6 July 2008, when Rafael Nadal collapsed onto the grass as flashbulbs lit up the shadowy Centre Court. The match he had just won, defeating Roger Federer in four hours and 48 minutes, was already being hailed as the greatest ever played. Even the scoreline — 6–4, 6–4, 6–7(5), 6–7(8), 9–7 — had an escalating, symmetrical beauty to it. A decade later, no match has come close to dethroning Nadal vs. Federer from its legendary status. It wasn’t just these two players who experienced something extraordinary that afternoon at Wimbledon. The 2008 men’s final, like all legendary sporting moments, belongs to every tennis fan.
This may be romanticizing the Big Three Era a bit too much, but it would be very difficult to witness that level of intensity and greatness again.
Let’s go back to 2008. Now, picture this scene:
It sat there on the edge of the tennis court, a lone plastic bottle adrift like a buoy in a sea of blue. Rafael Nadal had just wrapped up another grueling practice session at the 2008 U.S. Open. He grabbed his bag, full of gear, but absentmindedly left behind a bottle of Evian.
Back in the locker room, Nadal realized his mistake — a careless error, but to him, it was more than littering. It was the hint of something far worse: arrogance. To Nadal, there was no greater violation than acting superior to others.
In the middle of a conversation with two journalists, mid-sentence even, Nadal remembered his negligence and he couldn’t let it go. He quickly laced up his Nikes and, with the same intensity he brings to the court, sprinted out of the locker room. He raced back to the practice court, retrieved the forgotten bottle, and placed it in a recycling bin. Mission accomplished.
At the time, Nadal was 22 years old and the №1 ranked tennis player in the world. He had just won Olympic gold in Beijing, taken down Federer to claim his first Wimbledon title, and captured his fourth consecutive French Open. He was the top seed at the U.S. Open, the player to beat.
But no way was he going to let anyone think he was the kind of guy who didn’t clean up after himself. That is Rafa Nadal.
Nadal wielded humility, a rare occurrence in sports, like a superpower, propelling himself to 22 major titles in a career that will never be repeated.
Rafael Nadal, who announced his retirement today at age 38, has achieved far more since those early days. With his signature lefty shots fueled by a blend of joy and fury, and a relentless fire that never dimmed, he claimed 22 major singles titles — two behind Novak Djokovic and two ahead of Federer on the all-time list. He also won 92 singles titles, earned over $135 million in prize money, and amassed endorsements worth at least ten times that amount. He even added another Olympic gold medal in doubles to his illustrious career.
Through it all, Nadal remained remarkably unchanged. Throughout his career, he played with relentless intensity, often ruthless on the court, yet almost always carried himself with grace once the match ended. Inverting the typical image of swagger and bravado, Nadal proved that humility — and even self-doubt — could be just as powerful a motivator as unwavering self-confidence.
Even in a sport obsessed with phenoms and “next big things,” where expectations are tossed around like they weigh nothing, Nadal was a prospect on a whole different level. He seemed more like a mythical creation than a mere sports prodigy. Yes, his talent was immense, but both his game and his story were utterly unique — a unicorn among unicorns.
Nadal is Spanish, but not from the mainland that had produced several stars. Instead, he hailed from Mallorca, a Mediterranean island shaped like a tennis ball tossed from mainland Spain toward Italy. Though the island was home to former world №1 Carlos Moyá, it had little tennis history otherwise. Nadal skipped the elite academies in Barcelona, Madrid, or even Florida, opting to develop his game on local courts instead.
His coach? His uncle, “Uncle Toni” — a curious, intellectual figure who spoke German, devoured books, and questioned religion, but had no significant tennis résumé. One of Toni’s first decisions was to teach his naturally right-handed nephew to play tennis left-handed.
Beyond his topspin-heavy strokes, Nadal was physically advanced. Like LeBron James in basketball, Nadal had the body of a grown man while still a teenager. Turning pro in 2001 with plenty of fanfare, he quickly made his mark. At 16, he beat Moyá in Hamburg in a symbolic passing-of-the-torch moment. Then, in 2004, at just 17 and ranked №34, Nadal faced Federer, the defending Wimbledon champion and world №1, on a hot Miami night. His high-bouncing lefty shots exposed Federer’s one-handed backhand, and Nadal won 6–3, 6–3. Few realized then that this was the prelude to one of the greatest rivalries in tennis, the first of 40 meetings between the two legends.
Nadal vs. Federer became a legendary, enduring rivalry, but Nadal vs. his own body was an equally relentless battle. His all-out, intense style was undeniably effective, but it frequently came at the cost of his physical health.
Having never played — let alone won — Roland Garros before, Nadal arrived at the 2005 French Open as the favorite. He lived up to the hype, winning seven matches. How fitting: he claimed the title during the same week he turned 19. Who could have guessed this would become a spring ritual, repeating itself more than a dozen times? In the end, Nadal would capture a staggering 14 French Open titles, more success at a single tournament than any player in history.
But dominating on clay alone wasn’t enough for Nadal. He wasn’t aiming to be №1 on just one surface — he wanted to be №1 overall. The morning after winning the 2008 French Open, he hopped on the Eurostar, passing up a private plane, to start preparing for grass court season. Four weeks later, he won his first Wimbledon. By January 2009, he secured his first Australian Open, beating Federer, and famously offering him a comforting hug at the trophy ceremony when Federer was in tears. By 2010, Nadal had won the U.S. Open, completing a career Grand Slam — all before turning 25.
No amount of success could change Nadal’s core nature. As his fame grew, so did his accessibility and openness, especially as he became more comfortable speaking English. Despite his fierce competitiveness, his intensity would dissolve the moment the match ended, revealing a laid-back, easygoing demeanor.
Nadal didn’t just embrace humility — he weaponized it. To him, every opponent was a genuine threat. After each victory, he’d credit “luck” or say it came down to “a few points here or there.” When asked if he considered himself the favorite, he would quickly wave off the notion before the question was even finished.
To outsiders, it might have sounded like false modesty. Really? You have a 95% win rate at the French Open, and you’re not the favorite? You’ve won over 1,000 matches, and you were just ‘lucky’? But to Nadal, admitting any superiority was a weakness, not a strength.
As he once explained, “If we have no doubts, it means that we are the arrogance… For me, living in constant doubt is good, because it means we have to ask things of ourselves. Is this right? Is this wrong? What I’m hearing — is it true? Or are they trying to convince me of something? Doubts are good.”
Doubt served Nadal especially well in his rivalry with Federer, one of the greatest in sports history. Their clashes lacked animosity but were otherwise a study in contrasts: lefty versus righty, trench warfare versus surgical precision, raw power versus grace. Federer was the suave, cosmopolitan figure, while Nadal, a man of the people, preferred sandals and a T-shirt over black tie. Although they were identical in height and weight (6'1", 187 pounds), their body types were vastly different.
Nadal had orchestrated one of the great upsets in tennis, defeating the seemingly invincible Federer in seven of their first 10 matches. He could have easily declared himself the best. But, convinced that Federer was fundamentally a superior player and could soon catch up — neither assumption unreasonable — Nadal kept grinding, obsessively improving, always aware of the competition looming behind him.
It wasn’t just Federer who posed a challenge. Soon Djokovic, younger and more relentless, emerged as a bigger threat. Tactically trickier and mentally unyielding, Djokovic would go on to face Nadal more often than Federer (60 matches), make more headway (31–29), and deny him more titles.
But rather than feel threatened, Nadal recognized that rivalry fueled his success. Being pushed by his peers wasn’t a hindrance — it extended his career. His punishing, all-out style — perfectly captured by Andy Roddick’s remark that Nadal made tennis look “so easy and so hard” at the same time — combined with frequent injuries might have driven him to early retirement. But the competition kept him going. Doubt wasn’t a weakness; it was his sustaining force.
After Federer announced his retirement in 2022, he became a sort of moral force in the sport, a role, he had in the past, happily yielded to Federer. Suddenly, Nadal was the adult in the room. And, just as tennis needed him most, he warmed to it. He weighed in on politics. He gave lengthy, contemplative press conferences. He owned the room. And quite liked it.
The injury year 2021 gave Nadal time to prepare for life beyond tennis. His namesake academy in Mallorca — just a short drive from his childhood home and current estate — has already become one of the world’s premier tennis training centers. He’s also invested in restaurants and resorts, and in the fall of 2022, he became a father for the first time.
But inevitably, his body launched another rebellion. In 2023, he missed three of the four major tournaments. Fittingly, though bittersweet, Djokovic took advantage of Nadal’s absence at the French Open to claim his 23rd major title, surpassing Nadal and setting the all-time men’s record.
Perhaps even more fitting was Nadal’s final significant singles match, where he faced Djokovic at the 2024 Paris Olympics, losing 6–1, 6–4 to his long-time rival. Shortly after, Nadal announced in a video message that he would officially retire after the Davis Cup Finals in November, held in Spain.
“It is obviously a difficult decision and one that has taken me some time to make,” he said. “But in this life, everything has a beginning and an end.”
Over the past two decades, for those of us who have watched, cheered, agonized, and been inspired by him, Nadal has become more than just a tennis legend — he’s a philosophy in motion. He’s shown us the joy and importance of relentless effort, while also teaching us a deeper truth: that in life, many of those efforts will fall short, and that too is part of the journey. So it’s no surprise that Rafa to brings a stoic perspective to this poignant moment.
Nadal will rightfully receive endless praise for his unmatched mental toughness, but he’s also one of the most naturally gifted athletes of all time. His ability to produce incredible shots from every corner of the court was unparalleled, redefining aspects of the game itself. The sport was undeniably enriched by Nadal’s presence, and there’s no doubt it will be poorer in his absence.
As I finish typing this tribute to wish the champion tennis star a warm farewell, this iconic introduction at the Roland Garros during French Open 2024 start echoing in my ears.
Deux mille cinq
Deux mille six
Deux mille sept
Deux mille huit
Deux mille dix
Deux mille onze
Deux mille douze
Deux mille treize
Deux mille quatorze
Deux mille dix-sept
Deux mille dix-huit
Deux mille dix-neuf
Deux mille vingt
Et deux mille vingt-deux
Adiós, Rafa!
We will miss the vamos, the sash tied across your forehead, and the sleeveless jerseys soiled with red.
Fun Fact:
In 25 years of collaboration between Rafael Nadal and Babolat, the French company reveals that Nadal has carried 125 different bags (always on his right shoulder), never broken any of his 1,250 Pure Aero Rafa rackets, personally applied over 54,000 feet of VS Original overgrip, and utilized 186 miles of RPM Blast strings.
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