Rafael Nadal Addresses Retirement Speculation After ‘Disappointing’ Olympic Performance - UBITENNIS

Rafael Nadal Addresses Retirement Speculation After ‘Disappointing’ Olympic Performance

By Adam Addicott
4 Min Read

A frustrated Rafael Nadal says he is not thinking about when he will retire every day after suffering a comprehensive loss to Novak Djokovic at the Olympic Games.

The 22-time Grand Slam champion dropped 10 out of the first 11 games played before putting up a fight in his second round match, which he lost 6-1, 6-4. His lackluster performance followed a roller-coaster win over Marton Fucsovics on Monday. Nadal is still playing in the doubles tournament alongside Carlos Alcaraz.

“That’s a bad performance, I didn’t play well,” Nadal said via the Olympic Information Service.
“I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to play at the level… to raise my level to be a problem for him.
“I was not able to put him in difficult positions. I was not able to have enough quality shots, enough quality movements, so he was playing almost all of the time from comfortable positions and he played quite well.
“Playing Novak without creating damage to him, and without having the legs of 20 years ago, is almost impossible now.”

It is not the first time Nadal has berated his performance in recent weeks. Before the Olympics, he reached his first final since 2022 at the Swedish Open before losing out of the title to Nuno Borges. After that match, he told reporters that his level ‘was so far from what it should be.’

The mixed results for the Spaniard comes amid ongoing speculation about his future in the sport. He had previously indicated that this year could be his last as a professional player but has since insisted that no decision has been made. A stance he reiterated in Paris on Monday.

“I cannot live every single day with the feeling that it’s going to be, or not going to be, my last match. I come here, I try my best, I play and when I decide to stop playing, or when I decide to keep going, I will let you know,” he said.
“I just try my best every single day, trying to enjoy the thing that I have been enjoying for so much time.
“If I feel like I am not competitive enough to keep going, or physically I’m not ready to keep going, (then) I will stop.
“I don’t think every day about if I am retiring or not.” 

Meanwhile, Djokovic is hoping that his record-breaking rivalry with Nadal will continue. The two have played against each other 60 times with the Serbian winning 31 of those encounters.

“There’s no other rivalry in the history of tennis that’s had 60 matches between the two players. So I think that itself makes it very, very unique and very special,” news agency AFP quoted Djokovic as saying.
“I just hope for the sake of our rivalry and the sport in general that we’ll get to face each other once or maybe a few times, on different surfaces, in different parts of the world, because I feel like it can only benefit the sport.
“I don’t know how he feels in his body, what his plans are, but let’s hope we can play some more.”

Nadal will resume his Olympic bid in the men’s doubles later this week. 

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