End is nigh: Are we ready for a Rafa-less tennis world?

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

And, who would know it better than Rafael Nadal right now. After exhausting all other options, he finally decided to go under the knife earlier in June for a tendon injury that kept him out of competition since January. When he, for the first time in 19 years, missed the French Open, which has become synonymous with him, many thought that his sheer doggedness might just result in a ‘see you soon’.

But the grass of this Wimbledon shall be as sombre for his fans as the red clay of Paris. ‘If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s words mirror a lot of sentiments right now. For, Roger Federer bid adieu at 41.

Nadal is 37. Mathematical logic would have still given the latter a year or two at making more records. Perhaps a Grand Slam title or two more to add to that 22? Well, Nadal might not be taking the Centre Court at Wimbledon, but he is definitely on many minds.

Nicholas Kyrgios’ surely. He revealed in the recent Part 2 of Netflix’s Break Point that the second-round loss to Nadal at Wimbledon in 2019 was so crushing that eventually he had to be admitted to a psych ward. His frustration was evident when he literally took a shot at Nadal during the match.

He wanted to hit him “square in the chest”. Still, Kyrgios was always in awe of Nadal’s ability to deal with pressure and bouncing back from injuries. That is why it was difficult to say if Novak Djokovic was being sceptical or relieved when he said ‘a lot of people retired him already 10 years ago but he kept going…’, on Nadal’s intention of retiring in 2024.