“I did not sacrifice 20 years of my life for tennis”

The Spanish Rafael Nadalwho this Sunday will be honored during the first day of activity in Roland GarrosHe said he did not miss tennis, revealed that he had not returned to make contact with a racket since his retirement, which occurred a year and a half ago, and said he had never felt “a slave or an obsessive” of sport.

“I don’t miss tennis. I feel serenity, but not nostalgia,” said Mallorcan in an interview published Thursday in the French magazine The team. “I understood that I didn’t have much more to do by virtue of my injuries and my body. During the first 40 days after my retirement, I would have liked to continue playing because I was still able to do it. But my foot was very bad. I could barely walk. I have been very careful and today I have little pain, in general, in the body,” he explained.

Rafa left the professional practice of tennis after participating in the final stage of the Davis Cup in Malaga in November 2024. Then he had several seasons dealing with injuries that had conditioned his career. “The entire transition period, deciding what to do or not to do, was the most complicated to live,” admitted the Manacorí, who stressed that retirement had had “a real impact” on his life.

Since he said goodbye to tennis, Nadal distributes his time between the work linked to his tennis academy in Mallorca, recreational activities such as the practice of golf and paddlecloth (he usually play as a couple with Carlos Moyá) and his family life. Regarding this, he said that he was sleeping less than during his years as a player due to the commitments involved in the upbringing of his son. “Rafita is already two and a half years. Some days rest a little less, but it is part of life itself,” he said.

“I had the intuition that (retirement) would not be a very complicated situation to live because I have many things, projects in my life that make me happy. I am enjoying this new stage, I am learning many new things and enjoying my family. It is a radical change,” he said. And he added: “I have no normal days as before. Today I have no routines. I am still in a phase of organizing my life, of discovering what I like and what really makes me happy.”

The former number one of the world ranking, who will turn 39 on June 3, was one of the stellar figures of the circuit during the last two decades next to the Swiss Roger Federer and Serbio Novak Djokovic. In this period he won 92 titles, including Grand Slam. While achieving such achievements, he demanded a lot of time and effort, Nadal said that his life had not been limited to the borders of tennis.

“I did not sacrifice 20 years of my life for tennis. I was very happy playing, but also in other ways, out of the slope Friends, of the party, of the sea, practice other sports.

During the interview for L’Equipe, Nadal was asked if he regretted not having retired in May 2022, after having consecrated by 14th and last time in Roland Garros and before the injuries definitively complicated him. “I could not know then (how things would happen). I had won in Australia, in Roland Garros, I was fighting for the one in the world. I would tear my tennis? ”, did you reflect.

Rafa argued that coexistence with the injuries and with pain had allowed him to assess the achievements he had reached in his career, which he considered longest and most rich than he had imagined. “Of what I am most proud is of the longevity and the ability I have had to face and accept challenges throughout my career. I have always maintained a consistent attitude to a life made of many extremes. I never lost sight of who I am, where I come from. I have always managed to keep my team, my family, my life center in the same place. My real life has never changed much.

Regarding those who until a few months ago were his colleagues, Nadal praised Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. On his compatriot, he said that many people had generated a wrong image of him from the dissemination of the documentary In my way. “Carlos is a great professional, not someone who is partying,” he said. And he defended the Italian, who received a sanction of just three months after positive in an anti -doping control. “I know how strict the controls are and if they have not found reasons to declare it guilty it is because it is not. I believe in Jannik. I do not feel that they have benefited it for being number one,” he said.