Rafael Nadal Officially Announces His Retirement From Tennis

 

Earlier today, Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest tennis players that the sport has ever seen, made months of speculation about his seemingly impending departure from the game official. Nadal announced his retirement from the sport of tennis. He is the second of the "Big Three" (Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer) to retire from the sport.

During his illustrious career, Nadal won 22 career Grand Slams, an Olympic Gold medal in single competition in 2008 (making him one of only three men, and five athletes in all, to have won the "career Golden Slam (all four Grand Slam titles as well as the Olympic gold). 

Nadal particularly specialized on the terre battue, or clay courts. In fact, he earned his nickname as "The King of Clay" with historical levels of domination on the surface. This included 81 consecutive wins on clay at one point, the longest of any player on any single surface. Nadal won the French Open (one of the four Grand Slams, and the only one on clay surface) an astonishing 14 times, which is easily a record for any man or woman on any surface. 

Overall, Nadal qualified for 30 Grand Slam Finals matches, winning 22 of them (second among men to Djokovic). He won two Olympic gold medals, one in singles (2008 in Beijing) and once in doubles (2016 in Rio, with fellow Spaniard Marc López. Nadal spent 209 weeks as the number one ranked man in tennis, placing him sixth on the list overall in tennis history. Only other true elites of the game spent more time atop the rankings. 

For me as a tennis fan, I always enjoyed watching all of the "Big Three" play. But Nadal stood apart in some important ways. He was the first to "catch" and ultimately surpass Roger Federer, who prior to Nadal, had appeared simply untouchable, to the point where everyone simply assumed that Federer was the best tennis player that anyone had ever seen. Nadal himself quickly built up an incredibly impressive resume that many felt qualified him as the greatest tennis player in history. That is still up for debate, especially since Novak Djokovic ultimately surpassed both Federer and Nadal in terms of numbers.

Still, I feel that Nadal was probably the most physical and grueling tennis player that I ever saw. It seems unlikely that anybody worked harder than he did for his success. Truly one of the greatest and most inspirational athletes I ever witnessed. Tennis will be the worse for his no longer being an active part of it.