After winning two Grand Slam titles in 2019 and finishing the year as world number 1, it might appear that the end of Rafael Nadal's career might be close.
In 2019, Rafael Nadal won 4 titles including 2 from Grand Slams and won a total of 58 matches. In the next two years combined, he achieved the same result and it seemed that with the rise of the young players such as Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev or now Carlos Alcaraz, 21-time Grand Slam champion, Rafael Nadal won't have many chances to win more Grand Slam titles.
However, he had an incredible start of the 2022 season when he managed to win 3 titles, including one from Australian Open and during the first part of the season he has won more matches on hard courts than during the whole 2020 season. Despite all of this, former world number 1, Chris Evert believes that the Spaniard might soon end his career.
“He is sounding weary," said Chris Evert in an interview with Eurosport. "There is so much more that comes with being a professional tennis player than playing a match, but he sounded tired. The respect I have for him because he is 35 years old and he can keep getting psyched up every single day for these matches."
“I started burning out in my early 30s. When I woke up in the morning I didn’t have anything in me, so I don’t know where he gets this passion and fire in his belly from."
"I am sure with the injury, I don’t want to say he is falling apart, but you get a little more affected by the playing and training. It is going to happen, whether it is next year, two years, three years. I would not give him more than two or three years to play tennis.”
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