Roger Federer said goodbye to tennis in the wee hours of Saturday in London after playing his final match in doubles at the 2022 Laver Cup with Rafael Nadal. The match marked the bittersweet conclusion of the 20-time Grand Slam champion's 24-year career. It signalled the end of an era and unquestionably the start of the final phase of the greatest era in the annals of men's tennis. However, the time frame could have begun nine months earlier, when Nadal was pondering quitting tennis before winning the Australian Open, or possibly in June when the Spaniard struggled through the French Open while playing with an ailing foot.
Throughout his lengthy career, Nadal had dealt with numerous injuries, and on Saturday, shortly after Federer said his final goodbyes, the 22-time Slam champion revealed his surprising retirement announcement.
After struggling with a foot injury that kept him out for the majority of the 2021 season, Nadal was on the verge of hanging up his racket. But Nadal managed to pull off one of his most famous Grand Slam victories in Melbourne, coming back from the verge of retirement. But that's just a story, as Nadal has frequently stated in interviews this year. His biggest admission came after he withdrew from the Laver Cup when he recalled his run at the French Open.
Nadal stated that he believed the 2022 French Open would have been his final competition in an interview with the Spanish media outlet AS. Nadal went on to win that trophy for the fourteenth time, but his subsequent path has been marred by injuries.
“I don't know, I'm not at that moment yet. I was close to that time this year, I'm not going to lie to you. During Roland Garros I thought that it might be my last tournament, this is the reality. Although from then on everything went very bad physically, I broke my abdominal twice, at Wimbledon and in New York. It has been an accumulation of important misfortunes, added to all these personal things. But I'm not in that moment and I don't want to think about that moment. Today, what I want is to get back to normality, for everything to go well with my personal life, which is the top priority, and then organise my life in the right way. Have peace of mind in my personal and professional life,” he said.
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