It is very difficult in any individual sport for there to be a hegemony of three types for 20 years in the four Grand Slams such as that of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. The main comparison could be with golf, and in the same period no one won more than five or six major tournaments. These kids totaled more than 60 between the three of them.
Now it is Nadal, it was Federer and at some point it will be Djokovic. In none of the three cases would I dare to talk about legacy because it would be cruel to those who may seek to continue that legacy.
It is as if he were Messi: he can leave as a legacy the commitment to play football until the last day of his life, but to that we must add 20 years scoring 60 goals per year, 30 assists per year, playing 70 games per year… .It’s not normal.
In the case of Rafa, let’s think that a single title at Roland Garros or Wimbledon makes you a legend. Let’s just multiply Roland Garros by 14. And to that let’s add that It is not only playing 14 finals, but having played 14 times and won seven games in two weeks 14 times.especially for a guy who always confessed to being hurt when he played tennis.
There are things that can be taken as a reference for Nadal’s ability to improve. One of them, the permanent search for perfection that allowed him to beat Federer in a final at Wimbledonthe garden of his house, equivalent to if Roger had beaten him at Roland Garros.
We are also talking about someone with serious physical problems playing on cement who still won the US Open. It impacts how much tennis you have played and under what conditions.
Regarding the Davis Cup team, it is a sign that it is retiring in that context because, even though he had not played as much as he could have, the guy, whenever Spain played, the first thing he did was show a photo of himself, either in the stands or in the living room of his house, doing his best for the team.
Rafa and his Olympic gold for Spain in Beijing 2008. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
It is something very very sad on the one hand, it makes you very nostalgic. On the other hand, it is very logical: we do not have to be so selfish with our icons because they suffer certain things. He probably began to feel that he no longer had the physical capacity for the tennis he wanted to play.which no longer made a difference. Perhaps because it is a time in which to be effective he needed shorter points or a more explosive game that he never had.
There is a very special virtue in that sense, which is having assumed that his history, his name, his statue do not deserve certain defeats. This is something that is not minor because there are many tennis players in history who have tried far beyond their limits. Even our Guillermo Vilas played very small tournaments against very precarious rivals into the ’90s.
For Rafa it is not only saying goodbye to the circuit. It is understanding that I could no longer maintain a preseason, condition the family and, above all, suffer losing against those who would never have lost.
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