Rafael Nadal’s tennis comeback teases a glorious farewell but the reality may be more painful

Rafael Nadal is coming off the strangest year of his career, one without competitive tennis. He is determined to go out swinging before retirement but unusually candid about what may go wrong, writes JOSHUA ROBINSON.

Rafael Nadal plays a backhand during last year’s French Open final at Roland Garros. Picture: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

The strangest year of Rafael Nadal’s career — the one where he played no competitive tennis for the first time since childhood — is about to come to an end. The 22-time major tournament winner is planning to return from injury for one last lap around the pro circuit next month in Australia before he says farewell to the game.

But after 12 months away and a painstaking process to rehabilitate nearly every part of his body, even Nadal isn’t sure what to expect. In an ideal world, he would find his feet again, round into form for the clay-court season, delight his fans at the French Open, and possibly sign off with Olympic gold at Paris 2024, when the tournament will be held on the red courts at Roland-Garros that became his living room.

In reality, the whole thing could turn into a painful exercise in futility. Speaking in an unusually candid video posted on social media on Monday, the 37-year-old Nadal opened a rare window into the fears and anxieties that play out in the mind of an elite athlete.

“I have been afraid to announce things,” he said. “Because in the end it’s a year without competing — and it’s a hip operation. But what worried me most isn’t the hip, it’s everything else.”

“I think I’m ready,” he added. “I trust and hope that things go well and that it gives me the opportunity to enjoy myself on the court. It has been a long time so I hope first of all to feel again those nerves, that hope, those fears, those doubts. I expect from myself not to expect anything. This is the truth.”

Nadal, whose last pro match was a straight-sets defeat in the second round of the 2023 Australian Open, easily could have called it a career already. He will be 38 in June — a hard 38. His aching body has been sending him that message for years, louder and clearer than a chair umpire on Centre Court. There have been so many back issues, knee issues, and foot issues that even getting out of bed became a chore.

But Nadal had a clear idea of how he wanted to bid farewell to the game, and it wasn’t in an Instagram video about surgery like his longtime rival Roger Federer. Whether or not he was able to win another tournament, Nadal intended to spend one more season on tour before limping away into retirement.

Much has changed about men’s tennis in the year Nadal has been away. His countryman Carlos Alcaraz has claimed a second a major title and established himself as a constant threat to win more. Daniil Medvedev and Jannik Sinner, the world Nos. 3 and 4 respectively, will also arrive in Australia as legitimate contenders. And Nadal’s own ranking has tumbled to No. 664, which means he will face top opponents at an earlier stage in any tournament he enters.

One thing, however, remains the same: Novak Djokovic still rules the sport. At 36, he remains at the height of his powers and the favourite for every major tournament he enters. He will finish the year as the tour’s top-ranked player for the eighth time and recently crossed the threshold of 400 career weeks at world No. 1 — more than anyone in the history of tennis.

Whether Nadal has one more victory in the tank against his most enduring rival is anyone’s guess. He can still take solace in his most recent encounter against Djokovic, a gruelling four-set victory in the quarterfinals of the French Open in 2022. Nadal went on to win the tournament despite, he said, an intense regimen of painkillers and the loss of almost all feeling in one foot. He finished those two weeks in Paris with the trophy in his hands, but utterly spent.

Rafael Nadal with the trophy at Roland Garros last year. Picture: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

Since then Nadal has played barely a dozen matches. He shut down his 2023 season immediately after Australia and retreated to his academy in Mallorca, Spain to focus on recovery. That’s when he cooked up the plan for a farewell season that will look unlike any other in his life.

Simply returning to tennis has required a radical shift in mindset. Nadal spent 20 years building a reputation as one of the most ruthless competitors in sports. Now the assassin in a bandana says he has trained himself to go easier on himself. The challenge isn’t winning a 23rd Grand Slam title — at least not yet, it’s staying on the court.

“I have internalised what I have had throughout my life, which is to demand the maximum of myself,” he said. “And right now what I really hope is to be able not to do that. Not to demand the maximum, to accept that things are going to be very difficult at the beginning … and to forgive myself if things don’t go right — which is a very big possibility.”

Rafael Nadal with the winner's trophy the morning after the 2022 Australian Open final. Picture: William West/AFP

Though Nadal didn’t set himself any firm goals, it’s clear that he will build his season around a spring and summer on clay, where his aura remains undimmed. The problem is that the clay isn’t quite what it was when a teenage Nadal first took it by storm in a tank top and capri pants. The way surfaces play at the top level has converged in recent years — veteran players confirm that everything from clay to grass feels a little more like hard courts. In other words, the era of the surface specialist is over.

And yet, the red courts of France might be Nadal’s best bet for staying relevant in his final season. A schedule that kept him on clay through the spring and summer, with the French Open in May and the Olympics in late July, could give him the chance to rediscover just enough of the old magic to be competitive one last time.

Even Nadal admits that he isn’t there yet. For the first time in his life, he has no idea what he is capable of.

“I believe I’m in a different moment, in a different situation,” he said, “and on uncharted terrain.”

– The Wall Street Journal