Rafael Nadal: “I don’t miss tennis at all”
The Spaniard said he was content that he gave everything he had, until his body could no longer give any more
Zuma / Psnewz
Rafael Nadal loved tennis, that much is certain. If he could have continued playing beyond 2024, he would have done, but his body gave out. And that, as he explained on Monday night, is why he doesn’t miss tennis.
The 22-time Grand Slam champion was honoured at the Laureus Sports Awards in Madrid on Monday, where he was presented with the Sporting Icon award and where he enjoyed a rousing, lengthy standing ovation.
“The truth is that I don’t miss tennis. Zero. I don’t miss it at all,” Nadal told reporters. “But not because I finished tired of tennis or fighting against tennis, not at all.
“I finished my career happy and if I could have, I would have carried on, because I loved what I was doing…It’s just that when you realise that physically you can’t do it any more… you try to close that chapter. And I closed it.”
“I gave it my all”
Nadal tried everything he could to overcome the abdominal and then hip injuries that caused him so much discomfort in his last two years, but eventually, he succumbed to the inevitable, playing his last match at the Davis Cup Finals in November 2024.
He made the decision to retire, he said, as late as possible, but after playing at the Olympics, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in the second round of the singles and where he reached the quarter-finals of the doubles with Carlos Alcaraz, he knew he was done, and he was content.
“When I saw that my body wasn’t going to recover to the level I needed to continue enjoying myself on court, then I made the decision to stop,” he said.
“That’s why I don’t miss it,” Nadal added. “Because I finished with the peace of mind of knowing that I’d given it my all, and that my body couldn’t give any more.”
