Rafael Nadal retired from tennis on Tuesday night. He won 22 Grand Slam titles in 23 years across all three tennis surfaces, with an Olympic gold medal and 92 ATP titles in all. He was most dominant on clay, winning 63 percent of his titles on the surface and compiling an 81-match win streak between April 2005 and May 2007, which remains the longest single-surface streak in the Open era of men’s tennis.
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He also spent his entire career battling his own body, with Nadal’s injuries both acute and chronic carving the trajectory of his career and to an extent the way he played tennis.
King of clay. Warrior. Spanish bull.
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