MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Last night, a tennis legend played his last professional game. As Spain was knocked out of the Davis Cup, Rafael Nadal's career came to an end. NPR's Miguel Macias reports from Seville, Spain.
MIGUEL MACIAS, BYLINE: Yesterday, right around 5 p.m. local time in Malaga, Spain, the Spanish anthem played one last time for Rafael Nadal as a professional player.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: (Speaking Spanish).
MACIAS: An emotional Nadal stood next to his teammates - to many, the greatest Spanish athlete of all time. A 22 Grand Slam winner, his legendary games with Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic will live in the collective memory of tennis fans around the world. Before last night's games had even started, Nadal held back tears as he heard the crowd cheering him.
(CHEERING)
MACIAS: Everyone wanted Spain to go on to the next round and extend Nadal's career for a few more days. But, as it turned out, last night was Nadal's last dance.
CRISTINA GAGO: I remember the first time I saw him playing.
MACIAS: Cristina Gago is a former professional tennis player. She recalls seeing Nadal play back in 2004 in Seville during his very first Davis Cup.
GAGO: Even though he was very young, you could feel how he believed in himself, how he was going for every ball, no matter what difficult was, and reach that ball that looked like impossible.
MACIAS: And that became Nadal's hallmark, to never give up, overcoming impossible deficits in any game he played year after year. Gago says Nadal influenced her deeply.
GAGO: Saying to myself, come on, Cristina, you are Rafa Nadal, as a way to cheer me up, to believe that even though that things are very difficult, I can make it.
MACIAS: Pedro Fullana is a sports journalist with Cadena SER. He grew up in the same village as Nadal, in the island of Mallorca. He was there last night.
PEDRO FULLANA: (Speaking Spanish).
MACIAS: Fullana says that Nadal would play soccer on the streets using pine trees as goal posts. He says that, really, Nadal could have succeeded in any sport. But if there's one thing that everyone seems to agree on, it is Nadal's personal qualities. Sebastian Fest is a journalist and author of the book "Thank You: The Legacy Of Rafael Nadal."
SEBASTIAN FEST: I've seen lots of athletes in my journalistic career, and I don't think I have seen anyone saying gracias, saying thank you, so often. He says thank you to the ball person, to the chair umpires, to the sponsor, to his rivals, to the journalists, to whatever he comes across.
MACIAS: Fest says this is not the usual behavior defining huge sports stars.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Rafa, Rafa, Rafa.
MACIAS: Back in Malaga, just past midnight, and after more than seven hours of tennis matches, Rafael Nadal stepped on the court, lights dimmed down, and took the microphone.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RAFAEL NADAL: (Speaking Spanish).
MACIAS: And despite the magnitude of his legacy as a tennis player...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NADAL: The way that I would like to be remembered more is like a good person from a small village in Mallorca that...
MACIAS: Miguel Macias, NPR News, Seville, Spain.
(SOUNDBITE OF ATMOSPHERE SONG, "OKAY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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