February 9, 2025

Open Court

MORE TENNIS THAN YOU'LL EVER NEED

Here’s the thing about tennis players.

If it were up to them, they would play forever. Even the rich and famous ones who have absolutely nothing left to accomplish, little left to prove to anyone including themselves.

It’s that unquenchable desire to compete, in large part, that gets them there and keeps them there.

But it never is up to them. The body always decides.

In the match of their tennis lives, Father Time is always on the other side of the net. And he’s a serious servebot. That 25-second serve clock? It morphs into the sands of time, trickling inexorably down through the hourglass.

But even then, the player’s tennis soul lives in denial for as long as possible.

Those who precede them into retirement always offer the same advice: never retire too soon. Make sure you leave nothing on the table. No regrets. Because you can’t go back; once you’re done, you’re done.

The fairy tale rarely ends tidily, prettily. Just as in real life, there are few storybook endings.

Maybe the great Pete Sampras, who won the US Open – and then suddenly called it a career – comes the closest. Or Ashleigh Barty, who broke the duck on a homegrown winning the Australian Open and, realizing all she had left to do was live up to that – and wanting to start a family – called it a day at a young age.

But for the most part, they lower the curtain on their careers a shadow of what they once were.

Which brings us to Rafael Nadal, on a Tuesday night in Málaga, Spain in the Davis Cup finals.

One last moment in Málaga

Nadal, now 38, had heard and accepted the message his body had been sending him. But he wanted that one last moment. And he got it as a member of his beloved Team Spain, in his home country, with the crowd of some 9,500 all in his corner save for a credible number of Dutch fans who came to support their team.

Should he have played singles, given he hadn’t even played since the Olympics, on a clay court in Paris, in late July?

It would have been tough to sit him when the alternatives were Roberto Bautista Agut and Pedro Martinez. Nothing against those two, but this story was not going to end with Nadal on the team bench.

And so Nadal tried with everything he had left in his broken and battered body.

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Soul willing, body barking

As the Spanish national anthem played before the start of his match, the emotions were clearly already getting to Nadal.

If, in his soul and in the hearts of his many fans around the world, he thought he might rise to the occasion one final time, that notion was quickly quashed with the reality that is 38-year-old Rafa.

The nerves – and the blistering pace of Botic Van de Zandschulp’s groundstrokes – meant his trademark forehands were landing midway in the service box too much of the time. His reduced mobility meant that going to the corners – especially to the backhand side – was arduous.

The 218 km/hour serves were hitting the corners and skidding well out of his reach.

And, knowing he couldn’t keep up from the ground, Nadal became a serve-volleyer for the night in a way that was anathema to two decades of building points and wearing his opponents down. The very strategy, you could argue, that battered his body in the first place. What it gaveth him, it also tooketh away.

It worked, sometimes. But the famous fist pumps and cries of “VAMOS!” came merely at the winning of a point, not a service break or a set – or the match.

It ended 6-4, 6-4 – a creditable score but perhaps not reflective of the inevitability of the outcome.

A Davis Cup streak, bookended

Nadal didn’t play Davis Cup every year; this was his first tie since he defeated Canada’s Denis Shapovalov in the 2019 finals.

Nadal and Feliciano Lopez, on hand in Málaga as the Davis Cup finals tournament director.

His first came in 2004, when he was still 17 and a surprise nomination for Team Spain – especially considering the tie was played on a skating-rink indoor carpet in the Czech Republic. Top-10 players Carlos Moya and Juan Carlos Ferrero took a pass on the first round, and Nadal was picked over the much higher-ranked Tommy Robredo.

Nadal lost in three sets (in the old best-of-five format) to Jiri Novak.

But he defeated Radek Stepanek in three sets in the fifth and deciding rubber and three rounds later, Spain beat the U.S. to win the whole thing.

That victory against Stepanek began a 29-match singles winning streak that ended … Tuesday night in Málaga. He had 32 victories in a row, including doubles.

“I lost my first match in the Davis Cup, and I lost my last one. So we close the circle,” Nadal said during his press conference.

After that, he hustled back out to see if his tennis successor, Carlos Alcaraz, could keep Spain alive.

Nadal stood and sat and stood again. He pumped his fist. He talked tactics with team members. He was invested in every single point through Alcaraz’s victory over Tallon Griekspoor and the deciding doubles with Alcaraz and Nadal’s contemporary, Marcel Granollers.

The Dutch were too good. Wesley Koolhof, for whom it would have been a career-ending match had the Netherlands lost, notably played incredible tennis.

And then the tough part.

Speeches, gifts and “This is Your Life”

Nadal got through the speech just fine. The gift was a framed print of a Davis Cup win years ago that may have served only to remind him of what used to be.

The “This is Your Life, Rafa Nadal” video, he had to stand there and watch – all alone.

It might have felt as though his tennis life was literally flashing before his eyes – except that thousands in the arena and perhaps millions more around the world had to watch him watch it.

Young, spry, indefatigable Rafa, a full head of flowing locks and the trademark pirate pants, leaped through the screen at him. That young man would never have conceived at the time that one day, it would end.

Back then, he could fly.

You wonder what Nadal was thinking, watching that. His eyes moistened again. Maybe this was the moment that it finally hit him a little bit.

Even standing there, he got down on his haunches during the video. He rocked from one leg to the other. Even after just 90 minutes of tennis and some sitting around, he looked physically uncomfortable. You wonder how much it even took for him to take the court and acquit himself as well as he did.

He looked like he needed a hug – or 10.

But in an individual sport, the Mallorcan said goodbye alone. There’s a certain symmetry to that, in a way.

One last hurrah – a valiant effort

Nadal had been living on borrowed time for a while now, a series of injuries to a body that had taken an inhuman amount of punishment over the years making an imminent end a foregone conclusion.

He tried to back Father Time off the baseline, as best he could. He travelled down to Australia to try to play there one last time in January – only to withdraw after losing in the quarterfinals of a tuneup event in Brisbane.

Nadal practicing in Brisbane in January. He never made the date for the Australian Open.

He tried during the clay-court season, his prime time. Nadal had his moments in Madrid, and maybe gave himself reason to hope. Then he went to Paris, his back yard and the scene of his 14 Roland Garros titles, to try once again to find that magic one last time.

If it was going to happen, it might be there.

But he drew Alexander Zverev in the first round.

Nadal tried again at the Olympics two months later – again at Roland Garros – only to run into Novak Djokovic in the second round.

The tennis gods were not smiling on him. And they didn’t smile on him Tuesday night, either.

“In some way, the titles, the numbers are there. People probably know that. But the way I would like to be remembered is like a good person from a small village in Mallorca (who) had the luck that I had – my uncle that was a tennis coach in my village. And I had a great family that had a chance to support me in every single moment. Just a kid that followed their dreams, worked as hard as possible to be what I am today,” he said in English.

“And at the end of the day, being honest, a lot of people work hard, a lot of people try their best every single day. But I am one of those that I have been very lucky that life gave me the opportunity to live unforgettable experiences because of tennis.”

An unforgettable era, nearly over

And so Nadal becomes the second member of the “Big 3” – the third member of the “Big 4”, if you prefer – to limp off into the sunset.

Roger Federer – whose lithe body and economical game style served him well for so long – limped off on a knee that still isn’t right.

Andy Murray, who returned after a hip replacement to make sure he left nothing on the table, was next. It was a tough watch to see the Scot at the Olympics – still wanting it with EVERY fibre of his being, but not being able to perform at the level he wanted.

Now, it’s Nadal’s turn.

Soon enough – although that timetable is still very much up in the air – Novak Djokovic will be the last one to go. And that will officially wrap the most incredible era tennis might ever see.

And as they exit the court one final time, through the tunnel to retirement, those of us who have followed them the entire way will be reminded of our own mortality – of how much younger WE were when THEY were young.

We won’t have a prolonged standing ovation or a video of our glory days to compare ourselves to as we walk away. And most of us are lucky that our bodies won’t take our life’s passion away, at an age where mere mortals are just reaching their prime.

But life is like that. Father Time gets us all, in the end. It’s just a matter of how, and when.

And tennis will go on.

And unlike Federer (and eventually Djokovic), who have no natural successors in their own countries, the man who will continue to blaze a path for Spanish tennis is already here.

As the masters of ceremonies said in Spanish on the court in Málaga, Nadal is ending his career, but his legacy is just beginning.

His legacy, in fact, was on the court with him.

(All screenshots from the Davis Cup world feed/CBC Gem)

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