“My last days as a professional have been spent as a team. It has been an incredible privilege and an honor. A thousand thanks to the team. Now it’s your turn. The reality is that one never wants to reach this moment. I am not tired of playing tennis, but my body has reached a point where it no longer wants to play tennis. I feel privileged to have had this career longer than I would have imagined,” said Rafa Nadal on November 19, 2024, after Spain was eliminated by the Netherlands in the Davis Cup quarterfinals.
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That afternoon at the Martín Carpena in Málaga would mark the retirement of the most decorated tennis player in Spanish history. With a total of 92 singles titles, 22 of them Grand Slams, the manacorí left the courts as the king of clay, as well as opening the door to new talents like Carlos Alcaraz, Rafa Jódar, and Martín Landaluce. A career, however, that has had its highs and lows, portrayed in the docuseries RAFA, which Netflix premieres in its catalog this Friday, May 29.
Besides taking a long and detailed look at his life, including injuries and episodes of anxiety, the footage also focuses on his personal life, exploring his relationship with Mery Perelló. “The difficult part is making the decision to do the documentary, because after many years of not agreeing to do it, I spoke with people I respect and who needed to be listened to. The reason I initially didn’t want to make a documentary was to avoid bothering the people around me, family, friends, and team,” the athlete admitted at first.
Still, the four episodes touched on different aspects of the bond they share, including their two children. “Our families knew each other before we were born. I remember being at Rafa’s Communion, but I must have been six years old. We got to know each other more when we were teenagers and started dating one summer. He was chasing me at that time,” Perelló explained to the documentary cameras. “I was in love with her. She gave me the inner strength to maintain stability when I really needed it,” Rafa himself explained.
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A personal hell
One of the most difficult periods he went through was between 2015 and 2016, when Nadal suffered several major setbacks, such as his second defeat in more than ten years at Roland Garros. A huge slump in the form of anxiety, which translated into unusual behavior that even led him to seek a psychiatrist. “If I didn’t have a bottle of water in my hand, I couldn’t swallow my saliva. My throat would dry up and I would choke on my own saliva,” he detailed to the documentarians.
“2015 was the worst year. It’s the only time I played the entire clay season without winning a single tournament. I had less energy, less ability to concentrate. Something was obviously not working well. I went out on the court thinking ‘let’s see what happens today.’ I didn’t have control, I thought I was making a fool of myself and that match reflects my day-to-day for months,” he emphasized, referring to the previously mentioned match. It was in the quarterfinals of the Paris tournament, where he lost 7-5, 6-3, and 6-1 to Novak Djokovic.
