When he realised it was impossible, he retired - Toni Nadal on nephew Rafael's retirement

Uncle of the former world number one Rafael Nadal, Toni Nadal, has explained when his nephew decided to retire from the sport. The 38-year-old has struggled with fitness concerns throughout his career, especially in the later stages, so he has missed six out of eight Grand Slams in the last two years.

Nadal, who is often regarded as one of the best players in the history of men’s tennis in the singles category in the Open era, having won as many as 22 Grand Slam titles in his illustrious career, has recently announced that he will retire from professional tennis after the Davis Cup this year where he will be representing his country Spain in the quarterfinals round.

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Nadal’s uncle Toni recently spoke to Flashscore, as quoted by Tennis 365, where he explained when the legendary tennis star finally decided to retire from the sport. The 63-year-old stated that the decision was taken when Nadal realised that he would not going to recover completely from a hip injury that kept him out of action for nearly 12 months in 2023.

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“It will also be an emotional moment,” said Toni. “To close a stage of more than 20 years, yours, in professional tennis, to close it all at once, it’s hard. But, on the other hand, we knew that this moment had to come and that it was very close. So, we took it as normal. People always tend to blame others for things they don’t do themselves. Rafael found it hard to retire because, for anyone, to stop doing an activity you like and have been doing for many years is hard. Afterwards, my nephew has lived another reality: for years, he has lived with problems, with injuries that he has been able to overcome. This time, it wasn’t like that. It didn’t happen, and when he realised it was impossible, he retired. But before that, he would have wanted to continue, of course.”