There will never be another tennis player like Rafael Nadal

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Rafael Nadal looked unsustainable. When Nadal exploded into tennis 20 years ago, his game appeared too physical, too muscular, too hard on the body to survive for very long.

Tennis is a game of fluidity and grace, but the teenage Spaniard played it like he was moving a piano by himself. Nadal didn’t hit. He heaved.

He didn’t run—he charged. He hit a semi-Western grip forehand with a wild spin, finishing with a lasso-like flourish, and his backhand was a deep, grunting scoop. His high-effort talent was a marvel, great enough to win the French Open at age 19, but it couldn’t last.

It lasted. Longer than anyone imagined. “More than I ever believed possible," Nadal said Tuesday in Spain, finally stepping away from the sport at age 38, after a Davis Cup singles loss.

His style indeed proved pounding: Nadal endured repeated injuries over his two decades, some substantial with long delays, but he always found his way back to familiar, brilliant form. Nadal won 22 major titles, an absurd 14 at the French, two Olympic golds, and he played some of the most objectively high-level tennis of all time. No longer.

Nadal’s whole body said: stop. He is such a one-off he’s hard to explain. Ask yourself this: Who plays tennis like Rafael Nadal? It isn’t difficult to find youngsters trying to imitate Roger Federer’s one-handed backhand, or Novak Djokovic’s sliding baseline chops, but imitating Nadal is hopeless.

Who has the time or endurance? The physicality, the outrageous spin, the power strokes, the dedication to hit that way again and again…all of it by a natural righty who learned to hit left-handed, it’s an impossible standard. It’s like telling a kid to grow up and be the Hulk. Of course, what