Rafa Nadal’s farewell is still a bit far. The good feeling of the past weeks, despite their early departure from Roland Garros, cause him to postpone any decision on the end of his career for an indefinite periodin any case after the Olympic Games in Paris.
In an interview published this Saturday by ‘L’Équipe’, the Spanish tennis player He insisted he was “never” in a rush to make a decision, and “not this time either.”
“My feelings in recent weeks – he says – have pushed me to explore a little more to see what could happen.. I have the impression of regaining the pleasure of playing again, of having fun. “I want to give myself a chance to see if my physique stays at this level or if it’s a passing moment and it’s wrong again.”
“I’m giving myself time to see how I feel after the Olympics and then we’ll see what happens.What decisions do I make? But there is always a great calmness, with the satisfaction of doing my best,” he added.
Rafa Nadal recalled that he always said he believed this was his last year, but in reality he could not be sure “because in the end you never know what will happen in the future.”
He admits, without specifying when, that he thought about ending his career “many times” because he had “repeated problems”, he couldn’t train and he wasn’t having fun, but he had “people around , whether it’s my family or my team. And I always know how to stay strong in my head.
As for his good feelings, he emphasized how good he felt since he trained in Paris a week before Roland Garros and how that weighed in his decision to decline a tribute to him this year, as suggested by tournament director Amélie Mauresmo.
He initially said yes, but changed his mind: “Nothing prevents waiting a year. If the tribute is held and I am retired, I will go as a retiree. And if I keep playing, I’ll be there.”
“But because now or before starting Roland Garros I am not sure of anything, I prefer not to live with the idea that they need to give me an award because it was practically forcing me not to play there again and I wasn’t ready at that moment,” he highlighted.
Source: La Verdad
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