The famous tennis player Rafael Nadal has finished his career, “Marka” announced.
The unsurpassed “king of clay” and “Bull from Majorca”, member of the legendary “four” of world tennis, Rafael Nadal Parera, officially said goodbye to the sport in which he left behind so much, above all 22 Grand Slam titles, of which as many as 14 Roland Garros, which is hard to imagine that anyone will ever be able to do.
The injuries that followed the legendary Spaniard for several years now were still stronger than the man, who by the age of 20 already had 16 ATP titles, including the Paris Clay Cup and six Masters Series trophies.
Rafael Nadal Parera was born on June 3, 1986, in Manacor, Majorca, where he began training tennis under the watchful eye of his uncle Toni Nadal, who would practically follow him to his greatest personal successes.
Already at the age of eight, the popular Rafa won a tournament for boys up to 12 years old, but it is interesting that during that period of his life he was also actively involved in football. In the end, he decided on tennis, and the numbers we will write now are proof that he was not wrong.
The number one tennis player in the world was a total of 209 weeks, the first time he managed it in 2008 when he defeated Roger Federer in the final of the biggest of all tournaments – Wimbledon.
He has finished year-end No. 1 in the world five times.
He is the winner of 22 of the most important trophies in tennis, namely the Grand Slams, and he is among the few tennis players in the open era who succeeded in winning all four of those tournaments.
He won the Australian Open twice, in 2009 and 2022. He also won Wimbledon twice in 2008 and 2010, and Arthur Ashe (US Open) four times – in 2010, 2013, 2017 and 2019.
He showed incredible dominance at Roland Garros, and in the seventh match at Philippe Chatrier, he emerged as the winner in the following order: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022.
Indeed, the kind of dominance that cannot be remembered in sports.
Only Novak Djokovic managed to win a double-digit number of times at one Grand Slam.
The fact that he holds the record for victories on clay shows how unsurpassed he was on clay. Namely, Rafa won his 81st consecutive match on that surface.
He won 92 singles titles at the ATP level, including 36 Masters titles.
In 2008, he became the Olympic champion in Beijing, and when he managed to win each of the four Grand Slams, he became one of three tennis players who completed the so-called Golden Slam in singles.
Nadal has won the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award five times and was the best athlete in the world in 2011 and 2021, winning the Laureus Award.
