Rafael Nadal bids goodbye to Tennis
Rafael Nadal the fighter was already on display months before the world met Rafael Nadal the professional tennis player. In 2001, the Wimbledon champion Pat Cash was scheduled to play an exhibition match against Boris Becker on the Spanish island of Mallorca. A 14-year-old local youngster was called up in a last-minute scramble after Becker was forced to withdraw.
Nadal had no other way to play tennis than to battle it out for every point, run back and forth, and hustle from the baseline to the net. The only way Nadal knew how to play tennis was never to give up, not as a growing teenager on the cusp of greatness, not as a greying great well into his late thirty years of age, not at 40-0 in the opening game of the first set, not at 0-40 in the last game of the final set.
However, one of the best players to have ever played tennis, Rafael Nadal, announced on Thursday that he no longer has what it takes to compete professionally at the age of 38.
Consider Rafael Nadal's epic five-set victory over Roger Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final, which is regarded as one of the best. Consider the 2012 Australian Open championship match, the longest Grand Slam final in which Djokovic prevailed against the most determined opponent.
Consider the tears that Federer and Nadal shed while holding hands during the latter's final match; their relationship developed just as much as their 15-year competition.
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