After a recent loss in the Davis Cup, Rafael Nadal has announced his retirement from professional tennis. After decades of shared domination, Sports Editor Adam Schmitz looks at some of the incredible stats behind Rafael Nadal’s career and the reaction to his announcement.
Rafael Nadal, the ‘King of Clay’, has officially retired from tennis after bowing out of the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga. Nadal crashed out of the Davis Cup last week following a 6-4, 6-4 loss to World no.80 Botic van de Zandschulp.
The Spaniard, who has spent over 200 weeks as World Number 1, announced in a video posted on X that “it’s the appropriate time to put an end to a career that has been long and much more successful than I could have ever imagined”.
Nadal ends his career as a 22-time Grand Slam winner, a stat which is made up of two Australian Open wins, two Wimbledon titles, five US Open victories and a record fourteen wins at the Rolland-Garros French Open. His illustrious career saw him become the second highest earner in the history of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), amassing winnings of over $130 million.
His two Olympic gold medals, picked up in Beijing and Rio de Janeiro, added to his 92 ATP-level singles titles, making him the fifth most successful men’s player in the open era.
The 38-year-old holds the record for most tournament wins on a single surface, with 63 of his 92 victories coming on Clay. His 112 match wins in the French Open is another record, with no player having so many wins in a single grand slam event. At 24 years of age he became the youngest man to win a career Grand Slam, and is the only man to have won major titles and rank as world number 1 in three different decades.
Since winning his first major title at the French Open in 2005, Nadal has spent much of the last 20 years as part of men’s tennis’ ‘Big Three’ alongside rivals Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. The trio have topped the ATP Men’s rankings for a total of 947 weeks between them, the equivalent to eighteen years at the top. Nadal’s two rivals were quick to acknowledge his retirement.
Writing on Instagram, Federer said “What a career Rafa! I always hoped this day would never come. Thank you for the unforgettable memories and all your incredible achievements in the game we love. It’s been an absolute honour.”
Djokovic, who leads the way in most records between the three, took to X to acknowledge Nadal’s career. Alongside a photo of the two on a plane, his respectful caption concluded by saying “Your legacy will live forever. Only you know what you had to endure to become an icon of tennis and sport in general”. Other tributes online came from current Tennis World Number 1 Jannik Sinner, Nadal’s Davis Cup teammate and reigning Wimbledon Champion Carlos Alcarez and football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who previously played for Nadal’s beloved Real Madrid.
Having missed large parts of the last two years due to injury, Nadal finished his incredible career on home soil, twenty years after his first Davis cup victory which kicked off the beginning of a tennis dynasty.