{"id":40842,"date":"2025-04-22T10:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/40842\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T10:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:34:10","slug":"rafael-nadal-says-what-his-relationship-is-now-like-with-tennis-after-retiring-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/40842\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Nadal says what his relationship is now like with tennis after retiring last year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rafael Nadal continues to be recognised for his phenomenal tennis feats, despite retiring from the sport last year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nadal<\/a>, who called time on his career in November, has just received the Laureus Sporting Icon Award in Madrid.<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz received encouragement from Nadal<\/a> after his Barcelona Open final loss, where he suffered defeat to Holger Rune.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz now turns his focus to the Madrid Open, a competition Nadal won five times during his time on the court.<\/p>\n

Nadal will be honoured by the French Open<\/a> this year, having won a record 14 titles at Roland Garros, representing over half of his 22 Grand Slam titles.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Tim Clayton\/Corbis via Getty ImagesRafael Nadal doesn\u2019t miss tennis after retiring in November<\/p>\n

But as confirmed by the veteran after receiving his latest award, playing tennis is certainly not on his mind at this moment in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t miss it, honestly \u2013 I miss it zero,\u201d said Nadal. \u201cNot because I ended tired or had a bad relationship with tennis \u2013 far from it.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Novak Djokovic states what he can \u2018proudly say\u2019 he did to Rafael Nadal which very few other tennis players managed<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI finished happy, and if I could, I\u2019d still be playing. Tennis made me happy all my life. When you realise you can\u2019t, you try to close the chapter, and I\u2019ve done that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me a while because I needed time to be sure that the decision I was making was the right one. What I would\u2019ve hated is to be sitting on the couch at home thinking I could still be out there playing.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto credit should read VALERY HACHE\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw that my body wasn\u2019t going to recover to the level I needed to keep enjoying it the way I need to, I made the decision to stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t miss it because I ended with the peace of knowing my body couldn\u2019t give more. I still follow tennis \u2013 not obsessively \u2013 but I watch the matches that interest me and follow the results because I\u2019m passionate about sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal responds when asked if he could become a Davis Cup captain<\/p>\n

Talk has somewhat unsurprisingly quickly turned to what will come next for the 38-year-old after retirement, particularly in tennis terms.<\/p>\n

He has witnessed the likes of former rival Andy Murray not only turn to coaching, but coaching another old rival in Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> The ATP player Rafael Nadal said he would \u2018love\u2019 to win a trophy who is now being tipped as a big threat to win Roland Garros<\/a><\/p>\n

For the Spaniard, however, questions of becoming a Davis Cup captain have arisen, with Nadal having bowed out from tennis in that competition.<\/p>\n

Discussing the idea of becoming a captain at the team tournament, he said: \u201cI don\u2019t know, that can\u2019t be predicted.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Jose Breton\/Pics Action\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n\nTitles<\/strong><\/td>\nAustralian Open<\/strong><\/td>\nFrench Open<\/strong><\/td>\nWimbledon<\/strong><\/td>\nUS Open<\/strong><\/td>\nYears<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n22<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n2005\u20132022<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Rafael Nadal Grand Slam record<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m passionate about sport, but you have to carve out your path. I\u2019ve just finished a long journey, and I need to prepare for what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a family and a team that helped prepare me for what I loved for the future, and I don\u2019t know what might happen with things like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I could be a candidate to be captain, but certain circumstances would need to align, and right now they don\u2019t. I\u2019m not saying no, not at all \u2013 but I\u2019m always looking a few years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rafael Nadal continues to be recognised for his phenomenal tennis feats, despite retiring from the sport last year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[4294,4296,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-40842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-rafael-nadal","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114381171338434069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}