Rafael Nadal’s final match before retirement was Tuesday’s Davis Cup loss to Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands, and he went out exactly the way he should: fighting.
The scoreboard read 6-4, 6-4 in van de Zandschulp’s favor, but those numbers don’t tell the story of all the small battles and tiny wars that make up a tennis match — this one especially. Rafa, an icon in his home country of Spain, started strongly and scraped out a one-game lead that he managed to hold all the way to 4-3 in the first set.
But the sharpness he’d showed started to dull, and we saw the less precise and more familiar Nadal of the last year or so. His serve, which had been big and blistering through his first four service games, began to let him down. He gave up the lead thanks to several double faults and missed shots, and soon van de Zandschulp had taken over and won the first set.
Nadal could not get on top in the second set from the very start. Van de Zandschulp zoomed out to 2-0 lead before Rafa won a game, then won the next two to go up 4-1.
But then we saw the fighter. Nadal wasn’t going to go down like that. He battled to wins in two consecutive games to give himself a chance at 3-4 to make the dramatic comeback the crowd so wanted.
The storybook ending would have been magical, but it wasn’t meant to be. Rafa managed to win one more game, while van de Zandschulp won two to win the set and the match. The Netherlands ended up eliminating Spain in the quarterfinals.
All in all, it was very appropriately a microcosm of the last few years of his career. There were moments of brilliance where we got to see Nadal make gorgeous shots that only he could attempt, possibly for the last time.
But those moments were surrounded by reminders that Rafa is 38 and his body simply cannot keep up anymore.
That’s not a secret, or something shameful no one should talk about. For professional athletes, this day always comes. And if Nadal was in denial about that, he wouldn’t be retiring. Accepting that means there’s no shame in losing; it’s simply time to move on.
And Rafa will move on as one of the most beloved tennis players of his generation, or any generation.
