Former world number one Andy Roddick believes that Spain’s legendary tennis player Rafael Nadal is edging closer to his retirement days, similar to what was experienced by Switzerland’s Roger Federer in his last days as a professional tennis player.
Nadal is often regarded as one of three greatest players — along with Federer and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic — in the history of men’s tennis in the singles category, having won as many as 22 Grand Slam titles.
Nadal has recently returned to professional tennis at the start of the year after spending a lengthy spell on the sidelines because of a knee injury. However, his return did not go as planned as the former world number one has been out of action ever since taking part in the Brisbane International.
He recently opted out of the ongoing Monte-Carlo Masters as well in order to continue his rehab. Roddick was recently quoted in a report where he compared Federer’s last days with Nadal and suggested that he is on his way to retirement just like the Switzerland’s legendary player did.
"I have this hope in the back of my mind that he’s gonna get healthy and he doesn’t need to be healthy for 52 weeks, he needs to be healthy for two months,” he said. “Like, just burn it, go all of it, take all of the painkillers that you need to take, and let’s do one more.
"I always kind of thought we were going to have some version of that, maybe not winning but imagine him winning third round at Roland Garros, a tough four-setter, the place falls apart like… I want that for him.
"Roger retired at Laver Cup, he probably wouldn’t say this out loud, but Roger wanted to retire at Wimbledon or US Open. He wanted to play those. He wanted to do that, he wanted to say ‘goodbye’, it happened in three days as opposed to three months. It feels like we're getting closer to that being reality for Rafa.”
Hola desde Barcelona 👋🏻 Primer entreno… con la ilusión de estar aquí estos días previos al inicio del torneo. Estoy aquí para ver qué tal… con las ganas de intentar jugar. Ya os iré contando. Importante decir que no quiero confirmar que jugaré, ojalá que sí. Ya veremos 🤞🏻
