The former 20 time grand slam winner has had a long career with everything he’s done for tennis. He has also been part of the infamous ‘Big Three’ who have revolutionised tennis. With so many things achieved its just a matter of time before these three call it a day and retire. However for Nadal that day was seemingly in the books already.
Nadal revealed he felt like he might have to retire post last year’s incidents and his foot injury nagging him again and again, “I went through a lot of challenging moments, a lot of days of hard work without seeing a light there,” said the 35-year-old. “But still working and still receiving plenty of support from my team and from my family, too, without a doubt. A lot of conversations with the team, with the family about what can happen or what’s going to happen if the things continue like this, thinking that maybe is a chance to say goodbye.”
“For a long time I wasn’t able to practise,” said Nadal. “Sometimes I went on court and I was able to practise 20 minutes, sometimes 45, sometimes zero, sometimes two hours, but it has been very, very rough in terms of imagine myself playing at the best-of-five at this moment.”
“The doubts are going to be here probably for the rest of my career, without a doubt, because I have what I have and that’s something that we cannot fix. But for me it’s amazing, and I’m super happy to be able to compete for the last three weeks at the level that I am doing.”
“Not only about tennis, that’s for sure. It’s surprising for me to be able to play at the level that I am playing, but just compete and play tennis at the high level again, facing the most important players of the world, for me, it’s something unbelievable, no?”