Rafael Nadal, the joyful, beating heart of tennis, announces he will retire at the end of 2024

Time has finally come for Rafael Nadal. The 38-year-old tennis great who was the first man in history to win 22 Grand Slam trophies announced Thursday his intention to retire at the end of the year. His final event will be the Davis Cup in November, where he’ll be representing his home country of Spain.

Nadal announced his retirement in a heartfelt video message posted to social media. It was a little strange seeing Rafa, usually so open with his emotions, calm and composed when he spoke about the end of his time in competitive tennis.

We’ve seen Nadal through it all. We met him when he was a gangly, mop top teenager with boy band good looks. Now, 22 major trophies later, he’s a 38 year old man with a wife and child who has gotten tired of fighting his body, especially over the last two years as he’s dealt with recurrent back and foot injuries.

After turning pro as a 14-year-old in 2001, Rafa burst onto the scene as a 18-year-old in 2005, winning his first Grand Slam trophy in his French Open debut. What followed was nearly 20 years of passionate, top level tennis. Here’s one wild stat: Over his career Nadal has played in 131 tournament finals, winning 92 and losing just 39. In Grand Slam finals, he has a 22-8 record. In 2010 he became the second man in history (and the youngest) to complete the Career Golden Slam (winning all four majors and an Olympic gold medal) after finally capturing a US Open title.

While Nadal won trophies on all four surfaces, it was clear from a young age that he was highly proficient on clay. At one point he’d won 81 straight matches on clay, the most any tennis player has ever won on any surface in the history of tennis. He won 14 French Open championships, and is so beloved by the French that a Nadal statue was erected at Roland Garros years before he called it a career.

In a way, Nadal’s retirement feels like the beating heart of the men’s tour has been removed. His joy for tennis, and his gratitude for everything he had, could always be felt both on and off the court. Years of being in the spotlight as one of the most talented and competitive athletes on the planet can harden some people, but it didn’t change Rafa. He was humble and kind, always offering a smile or a hand or word.

Nadal was human, and he didn’t mind letting us see it. There was no facade between him and the rest of the world. He never put on a character. He was always just himself. If the Big Four was a boy band, Nadal would be the soulful one. (Roger Federer would be the driven and disciplined lead singer, Novak Djokovic would be the bad boy, and Andy Roddick would be funny one.)

Here’s an exchange sportswriter Jon Wertheim overheard at the 2018 US Open.

No discussion of Nadal would be complete without a look at some of his outstanding highlights.

Here’s a look at Rafa (and his hair) through the years.

Rafa always had the best reactions when the final shot was made and he stood alone for the win. But the best reaction may be from later in his career, when he won the 2022 Australian Open. No one had expected him to make it to the final, and at the start of the match, it looked like Daniil Medvedev had Nadal’s number. Nadal had dropped the first two sets and was on the brink of defeat when he dug deep and came up with one of the grittiest, most unexpected performances of his career.

Nadal shocked Medvedev, winning the last three sets and taking home his first Australian Open trophy since 2009. His reaction is an absolute classic.

What’s next for Nadal? Only he knows. The only thing we all know for sure is that he’s earned all the rest he wants.