Rafael Nadal’s last match before his retirement was Tuesday’s Davis Cup defeat to Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands, and he went exactly as he should: fight.
The scoreboard read 6-4, 6-4 in favor of Van de Zandschulp, but those numbers don’t tell the story of all the little battles and little wars that make up a tennis match – especially this one. Rafa, an icon in his home country of Spain, started strong and took a one-game lead which he managed to maintain at 4-3 in the first set.
But the sharpness he had shown began to fade, and we saw the less precise and more familiar Nadal of the past year or so. His serve, which had been big and blistering through his first four service games, was starting to fail him. He relinquished the lead thanks to some double faults and missed shots, and soon Van de Zandschulp had taken over and won the first set.
Nadal couldn’t get on top in the second set from the start. Van de Zandschulp zoomed out to a 2-0 lead before Rafa won a match, then won the next two to go up 4-1.
But then we saw the hunter. Nadal wouldn’t go down like that. He battled for wins in two consecutive matches to give himself a chance at 3-4 and make the dramatic comeback the crowd craved.
The storybook ending would have been magical, but that wasn’t the intention. Rafa managed to win one more game, while Van de Zandschulp won two to win the set and the match. The Netherlands eventually eliminated Spain in the quarter-finals.
All in all, it was fittingly a microcosm of the final years of his career. There were brilliant moments when we saw Nadal take beautiful shots that only he could attempt, possibly for the last time.
But those moments were surrounded by reminders that Rafa is 38 and his body simply can’t keep up anymore.
That’s not a secret, or something shameful that no one should talk about. For professional athletes, this day always comes. And if Nadal denied that, he wouldn’t retire. If you accept that, there is no shame in losing; it’s just time to move on.
And Rafa will continue as one of the most beloved tennis players of his generation, or any generation for that matter.
