WeeklySA_AdminGRACIAS: Nobody in Spain could have ever imagined before him that they would have someone who could achieve so much on a tennis court
By Sports Reporter
When travelling along the motorway past Malaga’s Palacio de Deportes this week, it was impossible not to spot the ginormous canvas paying tribute to the retiring Rafael Nadal.
The middle of the banner has a cartoonish depiction of Nadal in a familiar pose. Biceps bulging out of a sleeveless shirt, sweaty scalp wrapped in a white bandana, plastered fingers on his left hand gripping a racquet. The caricature is sandwiched between two words: “Gracias Rafa.” A simple message, which evokes a multitude of memories for almost an entire nation, neatly summed up what Nadal means to Spain.
“Gracias is the first word which comes to mind when you reflect on everything we have witnessed over the past 20 years, watching Rafa play,” Feliciano Lopez, Nadal’s former Davis Cup team-mate and a close friend for more than 20 years, told BBC Sport. “We can only be thankful to him, to experience and live what he has achieved. “Nobody in Spain could have ever imagined before him that we would have someone who could achieve so much on a tennis court.”
The achievements have to be seen in writing to be believed: 22 Grand Slam titles, 92 ATP Tour titles, two Olympic gold medals, four Davis Cup final triumphs, 209 weeks as world number one, 912 consecutive weeks in the top 10.
No wonder the fans flocked to Malaga on Tuesday – at varying costs – for what proved to the final match of his career after he lost in Spain’s defeat by the Netherlands in the Davis Cup quarter-finals.
They cheered. They cried. They even celebrated missed first serves by the Dutch in a football-style atmosphere. The range of Nadal’s appeal is broad and it was striking to see how mixed the Malaga crowd was. Young and old, female and male, groups and individuals.
Nadal strikes a chord with the person on the street. He also has the King of Spain on speed dial.
Some local people in Malaga this week have discussed their disappointment about his lucrative ambassadorial role with Saudi Arabia – whose human rights record has been criticised – but the majority speak glowingly.
Showing a humbleness which motivates others was illustrated off court when, in 2018, he led from the front to help his home island of Mallorca recover from devastating flash flooding.
Pushing away the slurry water with a bristled brush became a defining image. It also showed the love which proud homebird Nadal retains for his roots. Despite travelling to every corner of the globe to play the sport he adores, he has never permanently left his hometown of Manacor.
But the talent honed by the tough-love tutelage of his uncle Toni, who guided Nadal from a toddler to his 16th major title in 2017, was too great not to be appreciated further afield. The other place with which Nadal will always be associated is Paris.
The City of Love has played host to the ‘King of Clay’s’ greatest triumphs, racking up a tally of 14 French Open victories which few think will ever be bettered. When Nadal emerged as a prodigious teenager, making his ATP Tour debut in 1999 aged 15, he was known simply for being the nephew of Barcelona and Spain footballer Miguel Angel.
Fast forward a couple of decades and he is retiring as one of the most recognisable athletes on the planet. “He is the biggest athlete we’ve had in the history of our country, by far,” said Lopez, who ranked NBA basketballer Pau Gasol and World Cup-winning footballer Andres Iniesta just behind.
“I say that with all respect to other athletes because we’ve had plenty of very good ones.
“But we have experienced so many things with him that we haven’t experienced with other athletes. There is no-one like Rafa.”
