Having won a whopping 92 titles, including 22 Grand Slam trophies and accumulating $135 million (about R2.35 billion) in prize money over a career that spanned 23 years as a professional, Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal, 38, will hang up his racquet at the end of the season.
The “king of clay” has been plagued by several injuries over the past few years, forcing his retirement after an illustrious career that saw him win the Australian Open and Wimbledon twice each, the US Open on four occasions and the French Open a staggering 14 times.
It was on clay that he dominated, winning 63 titles on that surface, including the Barcelona Open (12 times), Monte-Carlo Masters (11), Italian Open (10) Madrid Open (five).
He also won four Davis Cup titles with Spain (he’s hoping to win the title for his country in his swansong next month), and won the Olympic singles gold medal in 2008 and the doubles gold in 2016.
Nadal said: “The important legacy is that all the people I have met during these 20 years have a good human memory of me. At the end of the day, the personal issue, education, respect and the affection you can treat people with comes before the professional issue, because that is what remains.”
As Novak Djokovic, holder of the most men’s Grand Slam singles titles, said… “your legacy will live forever”.
The sport is certainly poorer without Nadal on court, but much richer for having witnessed his craft over the past two decades.
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