Rafael Nadal announced on Thursday that he will retire from professional tennis following the Davis Cup finals in November. This will cap a career that included 22 Grand Slam titles and Olympic singles gold.
“I am retiring from professional tennis. The reality is that it has been some difficult years, these last two especially,” Nadal said in a video on social media.
“It is obviously a difficult decision, one that has taken me some time to make. But in this life everything has a beginning and an end.”
Nadal departs as the second-most successful men’s singles player of all time, trailing only longtime rival Novak Djokovic.
Nadal, known as the ‘King of Clay’, won the French Open singles title 14 times in a row, winning 112 of his 116 major matches at Roland Garros.
Nadal has also won the Australian Open, Wimbledon twice, and the US Open four times.
He also won Olympic singles and doubles gold and helped Spain win five Davis Cups, the most recent in 2019.
Along with longtime rivals Djokovic and 20-time major champion Roger Federer, Nadal created the ‘Big Three’ that dominated the men’s game in the early 2000s and gained legions of fans.
