The end of history: from Fukuyama to Nadal, the retirement of the myth | “Everything has a beginning and an end”, the word of the Spaniard when announcing that he will leave tennis

The end of history: from Fukuyama to Nadal, the retirement of the myth | “Everything has a beginning and an end”, the word of the Spaniard when announcing that he will leave tennis
The end of history: from Fukuyama to Nadal, the retirement of the myth | “Everything has a beginning and an end”, the word of the Spaniard when announcing that he will leave tennis

History, as a permanent collision of ideologies, is over. The American-Japanese political scientist Francis Fukuyama, of the United States Department of State, He decreed it that way through a famous 1989 essay“The end of history?” after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of the Soviet Union, later reconverted and deepened in a book published in 1992 with the title “The end of history and the last man.”

The twilight of the Cold War, the debacle of the communist governments and the birth of a definitive world supported by liberal democracies as the only system of representation, stated the thesis. With the wars over, the violent revolutions and contradictions eradicated, Now there is only one possible world for humanity.

Fukuyama’s theory could well be transpolated, figuratively with sport as study material, to the present that tennis is going through with a news which, although it was already in some way anticipated, shook the eroded foundations of a stage of the past that remained with a few remnants of what it was. The announcement of Rafael Nadal’s retirement is, in these terms, the end of the story.

“It is a difficult decision that has taken me a while to make, but In this life everything has a beginning and an end.” The heartfelt words of the Spaniard, contained in a moving video broadcast through his social networks, denote nobody is eternal, that No hegemony lasts forever and, sooner or later, the only winner is time.

https://twitter.com/RafaelNadal/status/1844308861492318594

Already retired two years ago Roger Federer -the man who left, in addition to an indelible legacy, a perpetual void-, with whom he built perhaps the greatest rivalry in the history of universal sports for 15 yearsthere were hardly any traces left of that Spanish myth that fought, at times as equals, at others with nobility, against the passing of the years.

On the one hand, the infinite number of injuries with strange nomenclature such as Müller-Weiss or Hoffa Syndromea physique beaten since his incredible emergence into Federer’s sole domain; on the other, the epic, the ball with infinite revolutions, the parabola of an indestructible drive, the construction of the myth at Roland Garros, all of Spain at your feet. The inexhaustible hero. The man who was murdered and who reappeared the same number of times. The symbol of a story that came to an end.

Nadal became a professional tennis player in 2001, He joined the elite in 2003 and decided to start ruining, little by little, the solo leadership that Federer had already started. His presentation to the world in the avant-garde was a bombshell: in March 2004, at the age of 17, he defeated the Swiss in Miami without offering any mitigating circumstances.

“I was able to beat him because Federer didn’t play his best tennis. If he had played at his best level I would have had no choice. “In tennis there are options if a player like me competes very well and a top player like Roger does not reach his best game,” reflected a young but sensible Rafa. The rest is part of a story that, although it emerges as indelible, will never return: Nadal took a large portion of glory from Federer, destined to control the tour for years, and took him to the ring to take each of the belts from him.

With that powerful drive, pushed by his left-handed condition, He subdued the Swiss until it became his nightmare: his high, heavy ball, with twice the number of revolutions, forced Roger to make an effort to the limit to lower it.unsuccessfully, thrown back, with his backhand. Federer was suffering.

He had to reformulate his game to overcome it only at the end of his career, when Nadal had already swallowed up a large part of the sky. Overflowed again and again, a Federer in the epilogue of his career took a step forward, in the full exercise of anticipation tennisto find the ball some time before. Beyond that last stage, Nadal ended up tyrannizing that rivalrywith 24 victories in 40 games. The appearance of Novak Djokovicin the midst of a dispute between the two, exceeded every limit of what was possible: the Serbian, there is no longer any doubt, He became the best tennis player of all time in terms of results. He beat them both in every scenario and surpassed them in every area.

There is no apparent discussion, but the construction of the greatest era in the history of tenniswith Djokovic included as the most successful piece of the Big 3, It is supported by the emotions and sensory experiences of the Nadal-Federer antinomytwo styles foreign to each other, a left-hander and a right-hander, a tireless fighter and a player whose elegance will have proven unmatched. The difference between the two, beyond the fact that one style dominated the other in the decade and a half of dispute, lies in the resurrection. Federer almost never left; once sidelined by injuries, he was never able to return. Nadal, on the other hand, left and came back, again and again.

He returned until there was no possibility of returning. The last two years, with just 23 official matches -13 wins and 10 losses-, put him in an alley with only one way out: at 38 years old he will no longer play professionally. The Davis Cup, the salad bowl that he won five times with the Spanish team, will mark the twilight of an unrepeatable journey.

There will be some Djokovic bullets left, already dedicated to the handful of tournaments that will help him fuel his living legend. It will be played more and more directly, with greater differences in physical power and with fewer variants in terms of spectacle. There is almost no playing for the sides anymore. Tennis changes. The years pass. Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner will dominate. Some third party will emerge. Holger Rune, Ben Shelton, Jack Draper or Arthur Fils will fight for a place at the small table. Francisco Cerúndolo will organize his repertoire a little morewith the fastest acceleration drive on the tour. Federer’s desire is not enough. “I always hoped this day would never come,” express. But every day they come. Nadal’s retirement is, in effect, the end of the story. Now it will be another time.

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