Rafael Nadal’s uncle and former coach has shared the heartbreaking reality of his impending retirement
Earlier this week, the 22-time Grand Slam champion announced he would end his career at next month’s Davis Cup Finals.
But his uncle Toni believes Nadal is going through the “same thing” Roger Federer did when he retired two years ago.
Like Nadal, the Swiss star spent the last two years of his career mostly sidelined by an injury and made some thwarted attempts to return to competition. He eventually hung up his racket at another team tournament, the Laver Cup, after admitting his body wouldn’t allow him to compete.
And Toni says his nephew has found himself in the same position, leaving him unable to retire in the way he ideally wanted. Nadal’s ex-coach told Marca: “Rafa would have liked to have another good season on clay and that means winning or, at least, performing at a good level.
“He has not retired as he would have liked. I always told him not to complain because life has treated us better than we expected.”
While his retirement might not be on his terms, the announcement didn’t come as a surprise given Nadal’s various injury setbacks over the last couple of years. “On Monday, everyone knows what the odds are,” Nadal’s uncle continued.
Looking back, you can say why he put it off, but Rafa was hoping to give his best and when he wasn’t convinced, he retired. It’s just that his body doesn’t respond.
“When he pushes his body, it suffers from one part or another. The same thing happened to Federer, he tried for two years and then he quit.”
Since hurting his abdomen at Wimbledon in 2022, Nadal has barely been able to play. Things got worse when he picked up a season-ending hip injury at the 2023 Australian Open and didn’t compete for a year.
The Spaniard has since played seven tournaments this year with some good results. But Toni believes his nephew became so used to playing through pain that he didn’t know when to stop.
The 63-year-old added: “Rafael got used to playing with pain, but I told his father that if we had retired every time he had problems he could have taken away five or six Grand Slam titles.
Since 2005, he has been practically incapable of finishing a training session, incapable of playing a Grand Slam match without taking painkillers. The problem he had is that he got used to playing with pain and saw that most of the time he came out stronger.
“He thought that this time it would be the same and what happened is that now after the knee, it came to the hip…
Nadal has enjoyed plenty of heroic comebacks from injury. He still showed glimpses of his never-say-die attitude this year, upsetting 10th seed Alex De Minaur in Madrid and making one last final in Bastad.
But the former world No. 1 has accepted that it’s time to end his career. He will be surrounded by his team-mates and Spanish tennis stars past and present when he says farewell at the Davis Cup in Malaga.
