“Everybody knows how much I love my country,” said Rafael Nadal before stepping on the tennis court for one last time to represent Spain in the Davis Cup on Tuesday. Although he couldn’t end his illustrious career on a winning note, the King of Clay was content with the feeling of playing for his country, at home, before hanging up his racket. This feeling became even more evident from his emotional reaction after the match.

During an episode of the Tennis Channel Live podcast, dated November 19th, hosts Steve Weissman, former American player Paul Annacone, and Jason Goodall discussed Nadal’s last appearance and how it went. They talked about how despite his best efforts, Nadal couldn’t snatch a victory from the Netherlands’ Botic van de Zandschulp. The latter kept his nerves and eventually reigned supreme over the 22-time Grand Slam champion, as he took the match 6-4, 6-4 in straight sets.

Apart from the result, however, host Steve also reflected on what Rafael Nadal felt like after it was all said and done. During a media interaction later, as revealed in the podcast, he couldn’t hold his emotions for his country. Realizing it was the last time he was representing Spain, Nadal said, “The emotions, feeling, the national anthem for the last time, like professional have been very special.”

He took pride in playing for Spain in his last match, but the loss did undermine his joy. Undoubtedly, he had “mixed feelings” as the defeat made “things a little bit more difficult. But that’s it. I mean, we went to court, we lived that moment. I tried to do my best. I tried to, at the same time, to stay as positive as possible in every single moment. To play with the right energy was not enough,” said the Former World No.1. On an amusing note, however, Nadal also realized how the loss in his final outing completed his Davis Cup circle.

Rafael Nadal speaks on his Davis Cup ‘circle’ getting completed

Rafa is someone who takes defeats as inspiration. Probably that’s the reason he was able to dominate the Davis Cup for two decades. Back in 2004, he conceded a loss in his first-ever match of the event. Playing against Jiri Novak, he failed to win. But what followed after was an invincible streak that lasted for twenty years. Before his final match on Tuesday, Nadal’s overall singles record in the Davis Cup stood at 29-1. After the loss, it’s now 29-2, but still mesmerizing, to say the least.

While pondering upon the results of how he started his run at the Davis Cup and how it ended, he said, “I lost my first match in the Davis Cup, and I lost my last one. So we close the circle.” Well, that’s one way of looking at it. But it’s something really intriguing for Nadal as he introspected how his journey came to a close. For those unaware, Nadal helped Spain to win five Davis Cup trophies through his contributions. The last time the country won the title was in 2019.

Now that he’s retired, Rafa wants to look beyond tennis and be happy with what he’s achieved. “I have been always happy without tennis, and I had a lot of moments in my life that I was not able to play tennis because of injuries, so I spent a lot of months doing other things. Is true that during recovery so now is a different approach.”

Nadal’s final goodbye has surely created a huge void in the tennis world. But his relentless efforts of never giving up and an immortal legacy will continue to echo in years to come.