Rafa Nadal will win again and it will seem unbelievable to us again

Rafael Nadal wants to retire on the court at the best level. He hasn’t competed in five months, and he has another similar period ahead of him before playing again against the best with minimal guarantees. His decision to designate 2024 as his farewell year is, deep down, a gift to the sport. Every day you bounce around the tennis court will be a party, an event you can enjoy without blinking an eye. And, let’s face it, at the threshold of 37, everyone can already suspect at what level he will swing the racket again. This reasonable skepticism is not new. This is how the story of his life is written. Blow by blow, impossible after impossible. Not only on the track, where he made incredible recoveries, incredible scores, cartoon effects his trademark… But every injury, every inactivity, seemed to condemn him to another decline. It was never like this. Why wasn’t he going to reappear at the end of the year and offer one last miracle?

Nadal, one of the impossible, is fire and ice, as the others were. But never before in the history of the sport has a giant somehow combined the passion on court, the hot blood to elevate matches and connect with viewers only vaguely identified with tennis, with the self-control to stay focused amid the worst of storms.

So, let’s be clear: ten months of non-competition between the ages of 36 and 37 encourages us to think that Nadal will only have room for a dignified as well as an emotional farewell in a triumphant ride around the world. Wherever he performs, the audience will surrender to his feet in a last dance that everyone wishes would never end. But he will do it again, he will surprise us again, he will win again, he will give form to the impossible again. And if he doesn’t make more, we hardly care. And then we will have to thank him for the memory of a feat like no other.