The clearest changing-of-the-guard images of 2024 for me came at Roland Garros. Early in the tournament, 14-time champion Nadal exited Court Philippe Chatrier for the last time. Two weeks later, his countryman and most obvious successor, Alcaraz, lifted the champion’s trophy for the first time. It was strange to see Nadal, who had played the role of matador in that red-clay bullring for so long, simply raise his hand, put his head down, and walk out the door and down the tunnel for the last time.
It was the same door—though in a different city—that Rafa’s friend Roger Federer walked through after his Laver Cup farewell in 2022. If the first years of Nadal’s retirement are anything like Federer’s, we might be surprised how quickly he fades from the sport—or at least from the court.
In the 1970s, when I first started following tennis, older fans, players, and writers constantly criticized the champions of that moment—Borg Connors, Vilas—and compared them unfavorably to the Australian legends—Laver, Newcombe, Rosewall—who were heading into the sunset. The new guys didn’t come to the net, they didn’t play doubles, they needed two hands to hit their backhands, they were spoiled by fame and money, they hadn’t paid their dues on the amateur circuit, their hair was too long, et cetera.
When Federer, Nadal and Murray were at their peaks, I thought something similar would happen when they hung up their racquets. I imagined fans continuing to reminisce about them, to mourn them, to constantly, unfavorably compare the next generation to them, to shake their heads and say “nobody’s as graceful as Roger anymore,” or “none of these young guys fights like Rafa.”
