Rafael Nadal of Spain practices during the Mutua Madrid Open 2024, ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000, tennis tournament on April 23, 2024 at Caja Magica in Madrid, Spain As Rafael Nadal returned to the ATP Tour for the first time in over three months last week in Barcelona, the 37-year-old appeared to be treating the event as the beginning of a red-clay-tinged farewell. Picture: Oscar J Barroso/Spain DPPI/AFP
No one - perhaps not even Rafael Nadal himself - can answer the question: Is this it?
But as the great tennis champion returned to the ATP Tour for the first time in over three months last week in Barcelona, the 37-year-old appeared to be treating the event as the beginning of a red-clay-tinged farewell, but one he'd like to see last for a few more months - should his body allow.
"I tried a lot of times in my career [to come back] and it's true that every time it's more difficult," Nadal told TennisTV after a win over 62nd-ranked Flavio Cobolli in Barcelona. "When you are an advanced age, it makes things even tougher. I'm going through tough moments, but at the same time when I am able to be on the tour for a few days and practice with the guys and then be able to compete a little bit, it means a lot to me.
"It's still enough enjoyable to keep doing it.”
This week Nadal heads to another event in his home country with hopes he can take yet another step back toward some of his vintage best tennis, lining up for the Madrid Open.
For Nadal it's all about each of those steps: In Madrid, then - he hopes - in Rome, in Paris for Roland-Garros and... a few weeks later, the Olympic Summer Games Paris 2024.
"I'm trying to enjoy every moment, and I'm excited to be on court again in a professional tournament," he told reporters in Barcelona. "That's what I have been doing all my life, no? I'm just trying to think what's going on day-by-day, trying to adapt to the situations and try to be able to improve under any circumstances to be a better player.”
That approach is actually one Nadal has always taken in his storied two-decade-plus career: Getting better at every turn, whatever the challenge is he's facing. But what is different for the two-time Olympic gold medallist and 22-time major winner this time around appears to be a greater recognising of the moment, regardless of what that means.
"I was not able to spend a lot of days on tour the last two years," explained Nadal, who has played just nine matches in the last two seasons. "I'm just trying to enjoy every day that I'm able to play with the guys at the professional level with the guys. That means a lot to me.”
But as Nadal moves through these tournaments with a sort of legendary air he has created, he is still pushing his mortal body to do the other-worldly things it has for so long.
"Today I feel myself enough good to be on court tomorrow, and that for me is so important," he said before his first match in Barcelona.
Yet what could a Nadal with a few matches, a few weeks, under his belt look like? Both a Grand Slam contender for the French Open, which starts on May 25 and where he's won an earth-shattering 14 times, as well as for the Olympic tennis event, also set for Stade Roland-Garros, and underway on July 27.
While it's no doubt that Nadal wants another look at the French Open, which he last won in 2022, to add to his historic haul there, the difference is great between the clay major's format - seven matches played at best-of-five-sets - and that of the Olympic Games, where he would only play six matches in a best-of-three-set format.
“Of course, [the] Olympic Games is one of the competitions I’d love to be at," Nadal said last May when he announced an extended layoff from tour to get his body healthy again. "I can’t say if it’s going to be my last or not. I hope to be there. Whether it's my last tournament or not, I can't say now.”
Nadal won his singles gold at Beijing 2008 at the age of 21, beating Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals and Fernando Gonzalez in the final. He added to his Olympic hardware at Rio 2016 when he teamed up with close friend Marc Lopez to capture the doubles, and there have been discussions on if he would also try to play the doubles with rising Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz.
But Nadal isn't thinking in those terms. It's one step at a time.
"I will try to take another step forward in Madrid, then in Rome, and, if in a tournament it is worth going out there to give everything and die for it, then it is Paris," he said of Roland-Garros.
But even after his defeat to De Minaur in Barcelona, Nadal was finding the silver lining. Which makes him that much more dangerous in what's still to come over the next several weeks and months.
"That [match tells] me that if I'm able to spend days on tour and keep practising with the players on this surface, that I really hope and believe that I can keep being competitive," he said.
"And my body will allow me to keep pushing the way that I need."
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